Issue 4.1 here - Grassroots Writing Research

Transcription

GRASSROOTS WRITING
RESEARCH JOURNAL
Issue 4.1 — Fall 2013
Joyce R. Walker — Editor
Sarah Hercula — Associate Editor
Kelsey Forkner — Assistant Editor
Jeffrey Higgins — Assistant Editor
Lisa Lindenfelser — Assistant Editor
Josette Lorig — Assistant Editor
Chamere Poole — Assistant Editor
Kristi McDuffie — Production Consultant
Nancy McKinney — Copy Editor
Department of English, Illinois State University
Copyright 2013 by the Department of English, Illinois State University. Individual articles
copyright 2013 by the respective authors. Unless otherwise stated, these works are licensed
under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite
300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-60904-252-3
The Illinois State University Writing Program
Stevenson Hall 133
Illinois State University
Campus Box 4240
Normal, IL 61790-4240
Produced in consultation with the English Department’s Publications Unit
Director: Tara Reeser
Interior layout by Brian K. McElwain, Stipes Publishing L.L.C.
Printed by Stipes Publishing L.L.C., Champaign, Illinois
Table of Contents
From the Editors
Sarah Hercula
5
Eating Genre for Breakfast: The Cereal Box Experience
Michael Soares
7
Tracing the Tracks of Greeting Cards: Genre History Versus Trajectory
Laurenn Jarema
17
The Art of Sexting: Queer Theory and Identity Politics
Eric Longfellow
29
What You Can, Can’t, and Can’t Not: How to Decipher What Writing
“Rules” Apply and When
Abbie O’Ryan
41
The Trend of the Pen: A Study of the Writing Attitudes and Habits of
ISU Freshmen
JoeyLauren Jiracek
51
The Memoir as Inquiry to Self Discovery
Miles Maggio
61
Screenplay Writing: The Art of Writing Films
Brandon Stark
69
Bust a Rhyme: A New Poetics of Food Journaling
Kate Browne
79
Zombie Apocalypse: A Genre Studies Guide to Survival
Francesco Levato
91
Pricked: Extreme Embroidery, or the Sampler’s Extraordinary Journey
across Cultures
Adriana Gradea
103
Writing Pains: Exploring the Writing Activity of a “Slacker”
Cayla Eagon
113
Stefan Becker: The Grassroots Writing Research Journal Interview
Michael Gibson Wollitz
123
Publishing with the Grassroots Writing Research Journal
GWRJ Editors
133
From the Editors
Sarah Hercula
The Grassroots Writing Research Journal ushers in its fourth year of publication with
this, our 4.1 issue. The journal has grown in its scope and sophistication over these four
years, and as a result, we are happy to present in this issue twelve brand new articles,
comprising a mixture of some more “traditional” Grassroots articles along with some
new twists on the genre, all of which offer readers complex investigations of writing
research, genre studies, and/or Cultural Historical Activity Theory.
In keeping with our grassroots research theme, we begin the issue with Michael
Soares’ behind-the-scenes research on the genre of the cereal box, exploring which
boxes make it from the grocery store shelf to our kitchen tables and why. Similarly,
Laurenn Jarema investigates a common and yet intriguing genre, the greeting card,
exploring intersections between genre history and trajectory. Jarema’s article includes
a unique timeline, spanning the lifetime of the greeting card from its origin to its
modern uses. Next, Eric Longfellow’s complex explorations of sexuality, power, and
identity are situated in his analysis of sexting, an explicit and yet fascinating genre.
We then zoom in to the level of the sentence with Abbie O’Ryan’s investigation
of some common writing “rules,” questioning in which genres and writing situations
these rules apply.
The next three articles were written by our 2012 recipients of the ISU Writing
Program Undergraduate Writing Research Scholarship, starting with JoeyLauren
Jiracek’s
year college student writers at ISU. Throughout the article, Jiracek
experience writing in the genre of the survey, her data collection instrument, as a way
Next, Miles Maggio illustrates his experience of writing a memoir to investigate his
past, using it to examine his tendencies and alter his future actions. He prompts his
Brandon Stark,
conducts an analysis of screenplays, offering examples of his own writing practices and
work in this genre.
Our next three authors explore some unique genres, beginning with Kate
Browne who traces her experimentation with genre subversion in the context of
food journals, a genre that failed her until she learned how to bend its conventions.
Francesco Levato’s creative piece relates his comical adventures in researching
5
6 Grassroots Writing Research Journal
how to survive the impending zombie apocalypse. And returning author Adriana
Gradea’s new piece investigates the complex cultural considerations involved when a
genre is transformed and transferred to new spaces and audiences.
The penultimate piece by Cayla Eagon adopts Cultural Historical Activity
Theory as its framework to explore a common writing situation: a college-level writing
assignment. Eagon’s multi-narrative piece includes both her internal monologue and
Michael Gibson Wollitz’s
becomes infuriated by the impossible writing and research practices of the “famous”
writer he interviews.
As we look to the future of the journal, we plan to continue increasing the quality
and depth of the articles we publish, prompting our authors to think deeply about
writing research in- and outside the classroom. We hope to expand the number of
articles we publish that investigate workplace genres and genres “in the wild,” and we
look forward to welcoming in a broader author base and readership as we continue to
with the Grassroots Writing Research Journal,” illustrates these hopes for the future of the
journal, providing guidelines and prompts for our future authors. Happy reading and,
of course, writing!
Eating Genre for Breakfast: The Cereal Box Experience
Michael Soares
From the store aisle to your bowl, the seemingly innocuous journey of
breakfast cereal is in fact fraught with implication for genre studies. Placement of the box on the shelf as well as the information on that box is a
case study of marketing in overdrive as companies compete to get their
cereal into your shopping cart. The popular cereals are those who successfully anticipate consumer uptake, ranging from colorful cartoon mascots
placed eye-level for children to “healthy” cereals placed above the fray for
conscientious, if not unsuspecting, adults. Masters of multi-modality and
context, cereal companies use tools such as the practical (if not dystopian)
planograms as well as the cereal box itself to zero in on potential customers, targeting not only their children but their own childhoods, effectively
placing genres on the breakfast table in the “Cereal Box Experience.”
“The truth is, all of us look forward to cereal for excitement
and fun. Deep down, everyone is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and
every other breakfast Cereal.”—Chuck McGann, original voice
of “Sonny” the Cocoa Puffs cuckoo bird.
Figure 1. Big Brother is watching you buy cereal.
7
Copyright © 2013 by Michael Soares
Abbie pushed by her brothers and ran to the Cinnabon cereal. “This is
the one I want, Daddy!”
“Why do you want this box, sweetheart?”
“Because they look delicious.”
Choosing cereal is an experience that evolves throughout one’s life. As
a child, the process was almost ceremonial, the perfect selection a rapturous,
quasi-religious event. Childhood memories of stalking the cereal aisle are a
domain. Predictably, and perhaps unfortunately, when we “grow up” the tricks
are not for kids anymore. The older we grow, our motivations change and the
cereal aisle is revealed as a dystopian nightmare of competing propaganda.
Despite this, no matter one’s view, what is not in dispute is cereal’s enduring
popularity and mystique. Merely typing the words “cereal box” into eBay’s
search engine results in thousands of auctions featuring relics from one of
everyone’s favorite childhood traditions. Cereal is in your face as it jockeys to
get into your bowl. Forget about the prize inside the box: the real surprise is
what is found outside, both printed on the box itself as well as the forces leading
the buyer to it. As a genre, the cereal box warrants serious interrogation, from
what is on the box and why someone is buying it, to how the cereal box gets
who decides which cereal goes where.
of the box to placement of the product on the shelf. Interrogating the cereal
box genre transforms a walk down the cereal aisle into an exercise of inquiry.
Which cereals are placed for adults? Children? The health conscious? How
do consumers read the box in the aisle and what effect does it have on their
purchasing decisions? What are the antecedent genres (those genres we
already understand and draw upon to help us understand new ones) which
lead us to how we read and act upon that reading? Analyzing the placement
of the product as an activity system (all the elements involved in an activity
and how they function together) reveals boundaries of the cereal box genre
that most people may never consider. The array of information on a cereal
box, as well as store circulars showcasing cereal bargains, creates a sea of text
through which a buyer must wade before making a purchase based upon his
or her “reading.” Other documents, such as “planograms” showing where
cereal boxes are placed on grocery store shelves, illustrate a hierarchy of
power and demonstrate the complexity of cereal box-related genres and their
profound effect on us in the grocery aisle.
I clearly remember the excitement of the cereal box experience as
a child, and now I am the purchasing power behind my children’s cereal
Soares — Eating Genre for Breakfast
choices. From the perspective of a parent, my understanding of this genre
is immensely more immediate and relevant. Accordingly, in order to study
the cereal box as a genre, I devised an experiment in three parts. First, I
recruited my wife to send a Facebook message to all her “mom” friends
requesting a variety of cereal boxes, several dozen of which promptly
interviewed local grocery store managers and researched the cereal box
phenomenon on-line and in the library. Finally, I took my three children
to the grocery store to allow them the one-time opportunity to choose
any box of cereal they wanted. What follows are the kid tested, father
approved results.
Breakfast of Champions: The Triumph of Multi-modality
Abbie hoists the cereal box triumphantly and I do not interfere with her
decision, but I ask her again—out of all the cereal boxes in this aisle, why
did you choose this one? She turns the box over and shows me the back.
Recently, Abbie has watched parts of the 2012 Olympics on TV, and the back
of the Cinnabon box features pictures of the athletes, effectively equating
sugary cereal with Olympic greatness. So begins the story of my cereal buying
experiment, but as it turns out, the story began long before my children, or
I, were born. As far back as the early 1900s, cereal makers were conniving
to draw attention to their products, creating
iconic imagery and generation-transcending
catch phrases, all in effort to strong-arm and
maneuver their products in the marketplace.
According to Scott and Crawford, authors
of Cerealizing America: The Unsweetened Story
of American Breakfast Cereal, “the originators
of the ready-to-eat breakfast cereal industry
were crusading eccentrics, men who mixed
philosophy with food technology to create
a breakfast revolution” (90). In short, cereal
has been a serious business for a long time
and continues to be so. The successful use of
multi-modality, when the text is dependent
upon input from the reader, is demonstrated
in the cereal box experience by the industry’s
careful orchestration of the many elements
that makes it to the breakfast table.
Figure 2. Abbie—future Olympian.
9
Reading the back of the cereal box is a breakfast tradition, so it is not a
stretch to consider the cereal box as text with six sides, each carefully designed
for a purpose. Of course, the front side is the workhorse because the reader’s
of the actual cereal product, often accompanied by fruit in the bowl that is
not actually inside the box, more often than not, the front features a cartoon
character, especially for the boxes at children’s eye-levels. Depending on the
buyer, a cartoon leprechaun, tiger, bumblebee, or sea captain is all it takes
to make a purchasing decision; one does not even need to read the cereal
name to know what is being bought. The average cereal box measures 7-8
inches by 10-11 inches with the “name” brands tending to run larger, perhaps
using their box size to demonstrate their supposed superiority. The average
graphic, including the cereal photo and/or cartoon mascot, measures from
5 to almost 8 inches long, while the average cereal name “title” measures
anywhere from a few inches to nearly seven across. Frequently one will
observe a small chart near the top of the box, encapsulating information
about calories, fat, sodium, and other nutrients such as calcium or vitamin
D. The genius of this feature is that it distracts the customer from the more
explicit yet mystifying “Nutritional Facts” box located on the side panel,
listing the inclusion of such inauspicious-sounding ingredients as “Trisodium
Phosphate” and “BHT” which is “added to preserve freshness.” Ultimately,
the most consistent bit of additional information on the front of the boxes
two-thirds of them featured the words “Whole Grain” splayed gratuitously
across the front cover. According to CNN correspondent Alexandra Sifferlin,
unless the cereal claims “100% Whole Grain,” one should assume the grain
“grain claim” is that despite the fact that I work in an academic setting, not
one person I know can actually tell me what the difference is between a whole
that “Whole Grain” is somehow very appealing.
Catcher in the Rice Krispies: Audience and Context
Isaac walked down the aisle, carefully considering every box. Closing in
on six feet tall, he towered above the gimmicky cereals and stared directly
into the sea of “healthy” cereal choices. However, Isaac is no fool—he knows
an opportunity when he sees one. Occasionally, he picked up a cereal box,
inspected it, and then set it back down, each time glancing incredulously
Soares — Eating Genre for Breakfast 11
back towards me, waiting for a reaction. He received none. Finally, after
box of Chocolate
driver’s license the day he turns sixteen. As he pushes towards adulthood,
Isaac is also pushing the boundaries of authority, making bold choices and
testing limits. When it comes to choosing cereal, it does not get much bolder
than a chocolatized version of one of breakfast’s most sugary cereals. Isaac
read the cereal box and then made his brazen selection, obeying a primal
adolescent urge to go against his progenitors.
The Catcher in the Rye, wandering the streets
of New York and sorting out his adolescent
detachment, Isaac wanders the cereal aisle,
reading the Bildungsroman of text. What Isaac
does not realize is that the cereal industry is
light years ahead of him, subtly and not so
subtly manipulating his choice by directing
not just how he reads a cereal box, but also
how he reads the entire cereal aisle. He
responds to this particular cereal box
because he is a teenager, and although he
thinks he is following his nose, he is actually
being led by it.
Figure 3. Isaac—against the grain.
My Grain Headache: Activity System and Power Hierarchy
An activity system coordinates multiple functions to create meaning
and the cereal industry means to sells you its products, the process beginning
with the circular ad, which reaches consumers long before they even set
foot into the store. According to Aaron Miller, customer service manger at
a local grocery store (and my former student), even in the community of
grocery stores, “This puts great importance on our weekly ad, which breaks
on Mondays. Cereal is a great draw for our weekly ad because everybody
eats it. A lot of the time it is on the front page, and if it is a hot enough price
bargain shoppers will come in just for it.” Large cereal corporations such
as Kellogg™ posses what is called “expert power,” which is derived from
“knowledge, experience, and reputation,” exerted to “obtain preferential
treatment” in the marketplace, including “distribution access and…setting
prices and margins for its products” (Harris 65). Flexing power as such
establishes a particular brand in the hierarchy of the cereal aisle and impacts
the activity system of grocery store managers mediating/negotiating between
producers and consumers.
Artifacts produced by the activity system are impacted as well. Among
the genres I encountered during my research, none were as foreign and
interesting to me as the “planogram.” I discovered the existence of this
genre artifact when the guy stocking cereal at Dollar General told me that
he had no control over what goes where on the shelf. He said that they
have to follow “whatever corporate sends us on the computer, dude. On a
planogram.” The planogram is a document that instructs stockers exactly
where to place the products. In fact, there are “planogram specialists” who
are trained in merchandising. Kellogg™ even offers a planogram on its
corporate website. Planograms are extremely detailed, sometimes secretive
documents created at the corporate level, which demonstrates how much
power is inherent in product placement. Miller explains: “Inside the grocery
store the cereal aisle is like Marketing 101. Give the consumer what they
want. The kids’ cereals with all the colorful characters are on the bottom
shelves for a reason: so the kids can see them.” Abbie is 45 inches tall.
and correspondingly sugary cereals which place the Flintstones and Tony
the Tiger at eye level for Abbie.
According to Mike Rees, another grocery store manager (and my
neighbor), planograms are also color-coded to show that certain products,
often premium cereals for example, are meant to be emphasized on the
shelf. At Rees’s store, they use black and white planograms with various
shades of gray to denote hierarchy. Rees tells me that planograms are
especially since his store prints them out to hand to stockers. A great many
of the planograms I was able to locate online featured vivid colors, but
there was one feature that most if not all of the planograms shared: the dire
copyright warning. Planograms are serious documents outlining serious
placement strategies for which companies have paid out serious money.
One particularly cranky document contends that its contents are strictly
not bring out the tiger in a planogram specialist scorned, I created my
own faux-planogram, a synthesis of the many authentic ones I observed,
pictured in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Model planogram—a “real” planogram would include Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) numbers, Universal
Product Codes (UPCs), and product dimensions.
Familiarity and Nostalgia: Magically Delicious Antecedent Genres
Alexander snapped, crackled and popped down the aisle, resituating his
glasses on his face and peering excitedly at each box. Eagerly he grasped a box
here, a box there, and turned them around to see what was on the back. He
measures in at 49 inches, so he is eye to eye with the same boxes as Abbie. As a
sophisticated system for making his selection. He will take an unfamiliar element
and attempt to reconcile it with that which is familiar to him, as evidenced
when he recently asked me, “Do ninjas go to Sunday school?” Having some
familiarity with the cereal in question—and being an admirer of its mascot who
is a frequent visitor on our television screen in commercials during our Saturday
morning cartoon ritual—Alexander chooses a cereal and cartoon combination
that has made him happy in the past: a box of Lucky Charms goes into our cart.
After much consideration, Alexander decided to base his choice on
“the familiar.” Memory of “the familiar” often breeds nostalgia for those old
enough to experience it; manipulated by companies employing cross-marketing
strategies, nostalgia is a powerful tool used to sell cereal. Perhaps cereal’s most
effective nostalgia strategy has been to connect the genre of cereal box with the
antecedent genre of television shows, and in particular, the sub-genre of cartoons.
A child responds to a box with a cartoon drawing on it. Little do they know
them in. In fact, much of the same talent who created the cartoons of Saturday
morning fame were responsible for cereal mascots including Jay Ward, creator of
Rocky and Bullwinkle, who voiced Cap’n Crunch and introduced him to the cereal
industry. For example, in 1969 Hanna-Barbera, who for years had a relationship
using its characters to promote Kellogg’s™ products, merely needed to send out
for its new prime-time television show. The studio had recently added Pebbles
and Bamm-Bamm to The Flintstones in order to score a “kid” audience. Despite
the fact that the show was at the time sponsored by Winston™ cigarettes, Post™
and Hanna-Barbera struck up a deal to name a cereal “Fruity Pebbles” and
plastered the Flintstones all over the box (Bruce and Crawford 195). Over forty
years later, my kids wouldn’t know who the heck the Flintstones were if it weren’t
for the cereal. As Bruce and Crawford point out, “The key point to remember
in discussing nutrition and breakfast cereal is that when people buy cereal, they
aren’t buying a nutritional commodity. They are buying a dream” (263).
Yes, I buy into that dream. Nostalgia as a genre has propelled some of
our greatest writers and continues to provide that tingle of excitement when I
think about some of my childhood cereal memories. What I remember the most
about the Mr. T cereal was not how bad it tasted (and it was terrible tasting), but
that it was 1985 and I believed that through the power of eating this cereal I was
an honorary member of the A-Team. What I remember the most about the C3PO cereal was that it came out before VCRs
and my only ability to relive Star Wars was to
old bent up Scholastic Book Club paperbacks,
and scour the back of this cereal box for any
clues as to what was happening with my heroes.
Ultimately, the cereal buying experiment itself
probably stems from a childhood fantasy of my
Figure 5: Alexander—Sunday ninja.
by my memory of eating C3-PO and Mr. T
cereal. Cereal marketers who “treated adults
like big kids got great results,” and they realized
early on to follow “this group of consumers,
some eighty million strong from cradle to
grave, referred to in the market segment as ‘the
pig in the python,’ a population bulge slowly
working its way up the demographic timeline”
(Bruce and Crawford 249).
Placement: Cereal and Writing
Many other genre situations were revealed during my research that I
do not have time to explore here, like the “healthy” cereal placed on the
high shelves and the time of year those cereals nearly sell out (after New
Year’s resolutions are made). Among the other interesting genres are “the
end cap,” which is an art in itself, and the in-store promotional texts including
shelf tags which inform the buyer not just about the price, but also whether a
cereal is “low sugar” or “gluten free.” Miller wrote at length about the crossmerchandising throughout the aisle with “clip strips hanging down with toys
of all kinds” and how cereal “just happens” to share space with the candy
aisle. Kellogg™ complicated matters when they sent me a 200 page investor’s
kit, and as mesmerizing as all this information is, at the end of the day I am
just a dad buying (and eating) cereal with my kids. As an English teacher, I
also see fascinating correlations between the cereal box experience and the
act of writing. Like the placement of cereal in the aisle, the placement of
information in writing is vital and we can learn quite a bit from a trip to buy
Golden Grahams. The cereal box genre takes the power it wields with text to
stir our hearts and minds, and when this power is modeled by students, it can
turn good writing into grrrrrreat!
Works Cited
Bruce, Scott and Bill Crawford. Cerealizing America: The Unsweetened Story of
American Breakfast Cereal. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1995. Print.
Harris, Brian F. Shared Monopoly and the Cereal Industry: An Empirical Investigation
of the Effects of the FTC’s Antitrust Proposals. East Lansing: Michigan State
U., 1979. Print.
Miller, Aaron. Email interview. 7 Sept. 2012.
Rees, Mike. Personal interview. 27 Sept. 2012.
Sifferlin, Alexandra. “How to Choose a Healthy Breakfast Cereal.” CNN.com.
6 Jul. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2012. http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/06/
health/time-healthy-breakfast-cereal/index.html.
Michel Soares has been an English teacher for seventeen years and a
dad for fifteen. Although he calls Massachusetts home, after he came
to ISU for a Bachelor’s in English Education and a Master’s in Literature, he ended up staying. Now he is raising three kids here. Pictured
is Michael holding his treasured autographed photo of Thurl Ravencroft,
voice of Tony the Tiger.
Tracing the Tracks of Greeting Cards: Genre History Versus Trajectory
Laurenn Jarema
Greeting cards act as lifesavers for many people drowning in a confusing cluster of words and emotions. In this article, Jarema investigates
the history of greeting cards from their origins to their current state to
determine whether greeting cards have always served as a relationship
rescuer or if there’s something more to their history. By exploring the
origins of greeting cards and how they have progressed through time,
Jarema identifies the important differences between genre “history” and
“trajectory.” While these two terms intertwine at points, they have distinct
qualities that, when understood correctly, can illustrate how writing often
travels beyond its expected course.
greeting cards have come to the rescue and aided them in articulating their
feelings to his girlfriend, or an employee is having trouble deciding what
words would be appropriate to wish her boss a happy birthday, a greeting
card portraying the exact message a sender wishes to convey seems to be
available for any occasion. For example, I found myself struggling for months
moving out of my parents’ house. After spending some time trying to form a
coherent message with the words rattling around in my brain, I realized that I
could not put together the perfect note without being wordy and cliché. It was
at this point that I decided to head to Hallmark to search for a “Thinking of
You” card that could assist me. While roaming up and down the aisles of the
store, I suddenly came across a card that had a small child on the front with
her two hands covering her eyes as she was counting to ten. I opened the card
really good at hiding.” Immediately, I realized that this picture and these few
short lines were the perfect way to put a smile on my mother’s face while still
17
Copyright © 2013 by Laurenn Jarema
letting her know how much I cared about her, which I could not have done
nearly as well by myself.
While many of us are relieved that today greeting cards seem to exist for
every possible occasion, was this always the case? How did people manage to
express their emotions to loved ones before paper, printing, and the greeting
cards we recognize today were created? The truth is that people used greeting
cards as early as the sixth century BCE, but these greetings were very different
from the ones we now purchase. The timeline provided in this article will allow
you to uncover how greeting cards have evolved and transformed throughout
history. If you spend some time reviewing the timeline, which begins on the
bottom of this page, you will have the opportunity to discover the complex
and rich history of the greeting card genre. While reading through the
timeline, consider what changes occur during each time period and how these
changes affect the genre of greeting cards (especially pay attention to the
bolded words). After reading through this timeline and learning about the
history of greeting cards, you can use your newly acquired knowledge later in
this article to understand the differences between “history” and “trajectory”
by comparing the history of the greeting card genre to the trajectory
greeting cards. So go ahead: take a look at the timeline!
The History of Greeting Cards
Fortunately for the many individuals, like me, who have struggled to
Actually, the greeting card has been a part of society for such a long period
of time that researchers are still not positive of its origins. While concrete
6 th Century BCE
Researchers have inferred that the hand-written messages historians uncovered
in Egyptian tombs from the sixth century BCE represent the first form of greeting
cards. Egyptians would send messages as part of their tradition of giving gifts
for the New Year, which included a message that, “whether written as a note
or delivered verbally, . . . was a greeting—the forerunner or our present-day gift
cards” (Chase 10). These cards obviously held an important place in Egyptian
society as they were valued enough to be stored in the tombs that Egyptians
believed would accompany them to their next lives.
Jarema — Tracing the Tracks of Greeting Cards 19
researchers have made inferences about the earliest greeting cards based on
available historical evidence. After reviewing the timeline, it may seem fairly
obvious that the greeting cards found in society today do not much resemble
the Roman medals and Egyptian messages preserved in tombs, or even have
the same style as Horsley and Prang’s cards. However, the greeting card’s
purpose of communicating with various people remains the same, despite
many other changes as the genre progressed from their origins to their
current position in society. The initial messages of greeting cards seem to have
been much simpler due to social expectations and technological limitations.
Unlike the many options I sorted through when choosing a “Thinking of
You” card, Romans were given, without choice, the message on the medal
for their Emperor. Similarly, people in England in the mid-1800s chose from
only, since others, like Horsley’s cards, were unacceptable on the market.
Where Greeting Cards are Today
The occasions for cards have grown tremendously since the original
greeting cards that were distributed mainly to celebrate the New Year
or Christmas. Now cards for Birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day,
Father’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, Grandparent’s Day, Anniversaries,
New Babies, Thinking of You, and numerous other occasions can be
found in greeting card aisles. A wide variety of card types and messages
for each occasion. And when a greeting card cannot be found that is
120 CE
The Romans distributed greeting cards around
120 CE in the form of medals that contained
an image of Roman Emperor Hadrian on one
side and a message on the other side that
stated, “The Senate and People of Rome
wish a Happy and Prosperous New Year to
Hadrianus Augustus, the father of the country”
(Chase 11). Since many citizens of the Roman
Empire would have purchased these medals as
a symbol of unity and appreciation to Hadrian,
they represent the first type of mass-produced
greeting card.
Figure 1. Castel Sant’Angelo, the ancient Hadrian
Mausoleum (image taken by Laurenn Jarema in
Rome, Italy).
Figure 2. Greeting card aisle at Walmart (image
taken by Laurenn Jarema).
occasion, people have, at times, chosen to
handcraft their own cards. Many grade
school children still craft homemade
Valentine’s Day cards in school, for
example. Other individuals choose to
create a unique type of homemade card,
such as the post-it greeting card found in
the 21st Century section of the timeline,
which includes several post-it notes with
personalized comments from the sender
that can be repurposed and displayed in
the recipient’s home. Among these many
choices, three types of greeting cards are
currently available to consumers: print
cards, e-cards, and homemade cards.
Yet this myriad of card choices can be
overwhelming for people who will need to
develop the skills to sort through masses of
During several interviews with students from Illinois State University,
to choose the right greeting card. Each individual who was interviewed
agreed that the thought process they utilize when choosing greeting cards
mainly revolves around their perceptions of the recipient of the card. ISU
undergraduate Caroline Rodak states that she chooses a card based on
1450
The cards crafted in Germany in the 15th
century, called “Andachtsbilder,” continued the
Egyptian and Roman tradition of exchanging
New Year greetings, but it also propelled the
greeting card genre forward by creating cards
that were pre-made for individuals to send
without having to construct a message or
format themselves. These pre-made German
cards focused on representing religious beliefs
as they were, “adorned with an image of a crossbearing Christ Child, inscribed with wishes for
‘ein gut selig jar’ (‘a good and blessed year’)”
(“Just An Old Christmas Card”).
1843
Figure 3. The Christmas card Horsley created for
Sir Henry Cole (image courtesy of Bridwell Library
at Southern Methodist University).
“the type of person who will be receiving the card and the relationship I
would have with that person. If I have a close relationship with the person
receiving the card, I would feel that I could send a funny card that other
people might think is inappropriate. If I was sending a card to someone
I wasn’t very close with, I would probably just send a generic ‘Happy
Birthday’ card.” In addition to assessing the recipient and sender’s personal
decide what type of card to send based on the recipient’s age. The elderly
and young children may not understand very sarcastic jokes in cards, so it
wouldn’t be appropriate to send these types of cards.” ISU Master’s student
well I know the person is important as well as the context of the situation.
Audience and context go together.”
Insight into the complex knowledge one must assess before purchasing
a card demonstrates that while greeting cards have come a long way
throughout history, it seems that they are an entirely different type of
genre now. This seems especially true with the development of e-cards,
or electronic cards, which are currently in competition with print cards.
In 1999, card companies began noticing a drastic decline in sales due to
“the Internet, new technology and changing demographics. While older
consumers are still actively purchasing greeting cards, younger shoppers—
especially those under the age of 25—have turned to e-mail and other
high-tech solutions, including making greeting cards online, as practical
alternatives” (Mendelson). Both ISU undergraduate students that I
Rodak acknowledged using e-cards herself, especially “to communicate
1843
England introduced the concept of Christmas greeting cards in 1843 when
Sir Henry Cole hired John Calcott Horsley to create cards for his family and
friends. Once Cole distributed Horsley’s cards to his loved ones, the remaining
cards were made available for the public to purchase for one shilling apiece. Yet,
the Victorian culture was appalled by the cards, “not for their depictions of the
starving and the unclothed, but because one of the figures shown sipping wine
in the central panel was a child [which led to criticism] for ‘fostering the moral
corruption of children,’ and the cards were quickly withdrawn from the market;
today, only about a dozen remain” (“Just An Old Christmas Card”). Even though
Horsley’s card images were not accepted by Victorian society, the concept of
Christmas greeting cards was embraced, and the market grew quickly during
the mid-eighteenth century in England.
not only “remember others’ birthdays,” but also to “send friends birthday
cards through the app on Facebook.” As younger generations have had
more access to online technologies than previous generations, they prove
to be utilizing the skills they have developed in order to send greetings
in electronic forms, whether through social media sites or by creating an
actual e-card.
In an attempt to confront the decline in sales that e-cards have caused,
many print card companies have lowered the prices of cards and begun mass
marketing their greeting cards to businesses that they would not have sold to
before. Even though e-cards have drastically changed the card industry, the
top executives from print card companies have expressed their enthusiasm
with card sales in 2012, since they believe that technology has only drawn
people closer and strengthened relationships. These executives recognize that
“while [consumers] appreciate the convenience that new technologies offer,
they continue to deeply value how the greeting card category helps them to
express their feelings in a creative way that is also authentic and heartfelt”
(Krassner). For this reason, card companies continue to produce greeting
sometimes cannot provide. While numerous birthday or thank you e-cards may
be available to consumers, a person wanting to purchase a graduation card that
and print cards offer, several other factors differentiate these two types of
1875
Figure 4. Louis Prang, the “Father of the American
Christmas card,” used a variety of colors in his
Christmas cards (image from the collection of the
New-York Historical Society).
Louis Prang’s transformation of the chromolithography printing technique allowed him to
create a cheaper method of color printing that
brought Christmas cards to the United States
in 1875. The public quickly desired his colorful
and reasonably priced cards that depicted
“cherubs, children, illustrations of beautiful
women, and lush floral arrangements,” and
“by the 1880s, Prang’s firm was producing
nearly five million cards annually” (“Just An Old
Christmas Card”).
greetings, which seems to allow both formats to maintain a place on the market.
The actual message space permitted in e-cards and print cards differs vastly
and targets different groups of purchasers. Since e-cards typically have a limited
space for senders to compose their messages, such as a maximum of a 200 word/
character count, people who want to include a lengthy message to the recipient
might prefer to purchase a print card instead of an e-card. On the other hand,
if a person wanted to send off a quick birthday message to a coworker, he or she
may decide that an e-card is the best option, not desiring to include a drawn-out
message. Rodak agrees that e-cards are very practical when sending a card to a
do not always allow me to insert a message and when they do, I just usually
write ‘Happy Birthday’ and sign my name.” E-cards also become very useful
whenever someone accidently forgets about an occasion and no longer has time
to purchase a print card; instead of becoming the jerk that forgets a roommate’s
birthday, a person can now quickly send off an e-card in a few clicks.
One of the most obvious differences that separate e-cards from print
cards is their actual format. While e-cards must be sent electronically, they are
received only through e-mail or are posted on a social media site. However,
print cards must be hand-delivered or mailed. Consequently, when a person
is attending an event, such as a birthday or graduation party, they are more
likely to purchase a print greeting card to attach to their gift instead of
emailing the recipient an e-card that he or she would not be able to view until
after the event. Yet, if a person was unable to attend an event, then he or she
might choose to send an e-card so it is received by the recipient quicker. Or,
the person might still send a print card through the mail so that the recipient
can physically open the card as a gift. Sending a print card through the mail
1900s
While many card manufacturers imitated Prang
in the early 20th century, other artists continued
with their own styles. During the late 1800s
and early 1900s, Kate Greenaway, a popular
English children’s author and illustrator, crafted
lavish cards with beautiful fringe and satin
that were available in a variety of formats in
America. Greenaway’s cards could be shaped
as bells, candles, fans, or crescents; they could
be puzzles, pop-ups, or map cards; and they
could even include squeaking noisemakers
(“Just An Old Christmas Card”).
21 st Century
Figure 5. Lisa Lindenfelser’s handmade post-it card
(image taken by Laurenn Jarema).
in this situation would also give the sender the option of including a monetary
gift in the card as well so that they are still able to provide a gift despite their
lack of attendance.
Due to the drastic differences between print and e-cards in terms of
Although not always the case, e-cards are usually viewed as a more informal
type of greeting card, since many e-cards are often free and easy to send
with a few clicks on the computer. When a person sends his or her coworker
the recipient might assume that the e-card was sent because the person
forgot about the recipient’s birthday or did not want to take the time to
compose a meaningful message. Consequently, even though the e-card may
“save” the person—as in the previous example of the person who forgot
about his or her roommate’s birthday—the recipient is also likely to be
aware of this oversight and possibly frown upon the roommate’s decision
to send an e-card versus purchasing a print card. Thus, print cards are
typically labeled as the more formal greeting card genre; when they are
purchased and sent, the sender must spend more time and money while
choosing the card, and the recipient is usually conscious and appreciative
of this gesture.
Genre History versus Trajectory
By examining the timeline and information regarding the current
state of greeting cards, it becomes clear that the history of the greeting
card has transformed from verbal messages, to medal greetings, to premade cards, to elaborate pop-up and musical cards, to e-cards that can
be sent in a couple clicks of a mouse. Each one of these transformations
has occurred as production and distribution capabilities expanded within
society. The knowledge that individuals gained from previous formats and
styles of greeting cards has also tremendously shaped the next genre of cards
produced. Without one of these genres of greeting cards, the other genres
may have appeared very different or may never have even existed at all.
This is true for the modern print cards that are attempting to survive the
accessibility, ease, and affordability that e-cards provide by lowering prices
and becoming even more personalized. If e-cards had not been developed,
original greeting cards are vastly different from the kinds people purchase
today, the history of the genre has proven that greeting cards have expanded
and transformed rather than risking extinction by refusing to adapt to
changing cultures.
the next, prompting the logical progression of greeting cards. It is interesting to
compare the history of greeting cards to the implications of their trajectory. A
history of a genre allows individuals to examine the progression and expansion
the genre has experienced over time, such as by viewing its development in a
timeline. However, a trajectory
The trajectory of the Egyptian greeting cards remains intricate in itself, with
the sender likely composing a message that could have been mistakenly altered
by the messenger or interpreted by the receiver in an unintended way. It is
interesting to wonder if the Egyptians envisioned their text continuing its life
in the tomb of the receiver only to be discovered by modern historians and put
on display in a museum. All of these greetings from the early Egyptians have
complex and rich lives through their production, distribution, and use.
Figure 6. Trajectory of an ancient Egyptian greeting card.
The examination of the trajectory of the entire history of the greeting
card genre seems uncomprehendingly complex in comparison to just one
greeting from the Egyptian time period. Consequently, while history and
trajectory work together and perform similar tasks, they still remain separate
entities. History helps inform people of where a certain text’s trajectory
may have originated, or even how a text’s trajectory may have differed from
the overall history of the genre. Likewise, as trajectory provides an exact
to numerous and sometimes unexpected and unpredictable places in the
the example of the trajectory of an ancient Egyptian greeting card, the text’s
production, distribution, and use are explored. The text’s trajectory includes:
As cards have become more complex and creative, thanks to the
the trajectory of greeting cards today. Computers, cell phones, cameras, and
other electronic devices have not only affected how cards can be created, but
also how they are dispersed and even preserved. Instead of having a basic
sender and receiver trajectory that could be altered and affected in multiple
ways, the technology of today adds many other factors into the equation.
A computer glitch could have a greeting card accidently sent to the wrong
recipient, while the Internet also expands the amount of people who receive
cards since e-cards are cheaper and easier to send than print cards. Yet, even
with the uncertainty of the future trajectory of print cards, e-cards, and the
greeting card genre as a whole, it still seems fair to say that the production,
distribution, and use of greeting cards will continue in society. Thus, the
history of greeting cards will continue to grow as well. As greeting cards
continue to be produced, distributed, and used, they will still reach unforeseen
audiences and impact society in ways that we might never be able to predict.
Rodak for agreeing to participate in personal interviews for the research of
this article.
Works Cited
Chase, Ernest Dudley. The Romance of Greeting Cards. Dedham, MA: Rust Craft
Publishers, 1956. Print.
“Just An Old Christmas Card.” Antiques & Collecting Magazine 113.10 (2008):
30. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 27 Sept. 2012.
Krassner, Kathy. “2012 Card Market Outlook.” Gifts & Decorative Accessories
112.10 (2011): 160. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 27 Sept. 2012.
Lindenfelser, Lisa. Personal interview. 3 Oct. 2012.
Mendelson, Seth. “Rewriting History.” Discount Merchandiser 39.3 (1999): 45.
MasterFILE Premier. Web. 27 Sept. 2012.
Rodak, Caroline. Personal interview. 2 Oct. 2012.
Laurenn Jarema is a Master’s student specializing in Rhetoric and Composition at Illinois
State University. When she is not reading, running, or relaxing, she loves spending time
with her six-month-old puppy, Megatron, who will be receiving a greeting card from her
on his first birthday.
The Art of Sexting: Queer Theory and Identity Politics
Eric Longfellow
In this article, Longfellow uses queer theory to trace his foray into the
genre of sexting. Pulling from antecedent genres such as romance
novels, erotica, and film, he sends explicit text messages to his girlfriend and then analyzes both the texts and her responses. All of this
is in an effort to subvert traditional understandings of sexuality, power,
and identity.
In 2011, Anthony Weiner brought sexting back into the forefront of
our collective consciousness when he sent a picture of his penis out to the
wait a minute,
how is that sexting?
television shows and news outlets, I had just assumed that the term sexting
was held exclusively for the text message equivalent of phone sex. You
know, conversations rapt with awkward misspellings of the word ‘come’ and
euphemisms like ‘member’ that you have to assume will make anyone involved
feel uncomfortable. The idea that sexting could be as simple as snapping a
shot of your erection-stretched boxer briefs . . . sign me up.
So I had to do some research. Turns out sexting is a pretty broad term.
Wikipedia, my go to source for semi-reliable background knowledge, told me
that “Sexting is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photographs,
21st century, and is a portmanteau of sex and texting.” Good to know—
if I want to delve into the world of sex-based text messaging, it can be as
easy as dropping trou and snapping off an Instagram. And on a side note,
portmanteau already sounds kinky. I’ll spare everyone the details of my
29
Copyright © 2013 by Eric Longfellow
of angles and lighting. Ultimately, though, I had to ask myself if I really felt
comfortable with the knowledge that that part of me would be out there,
back to me. The James Lipton commercial came to mind where he stops a
young man from sending a picture of his “junk” to his girlfriend by giving
him his beard, then saying, “before you text, give it a ponder.” Find it on
Youtube. Plus, I couldn’t help but be paranoid that we inopportunely named
individuals, the Weiners and the Longfellows of the world alike, have a slightly
higher chance of something like that coming back to bite us in the ass. Who
knows, I might run for Congress someday.
So, I decided not to go ahead with the erotic photography, but not before
running some interesting Photoshop background scenarios through my mind.
Also, I had to suppress a disturbing curiosity to use the program Oldify. I
digress. Long story short: the little amount of research I had done on sexting
made me curious enough to learn more about the growing practice. If the
picture wasn’t going to work, I would have to resort to good, old-fashioned
words. What follows is a step by step breakdown of how I researched and
ultimately composed within this somewhat unfamiliar genre that seems to have
much of the country up in arms. This article, then, follows a queer theoretical
model to explore conceptions of heteronormativity and intersectionality in an effort
to frame the practice of sexting within a socio-cultural and historical context.
on queer theory and the approach to writing I will be taking. Queer, in this
instance, refers to anything that works against dominant modes of culture—
anything that works against what would be widely considered “normal.” If
you think about identitarian politics, or the categories people use to identify
themselves—i.e. I’m straight, or I’m white, or I’m middle class—you can
start to see how the term queer can disrupt what is generally thought to be
“normal” in productive ways. Heteronormativity, then, can be seen as the
dominant thinking that heterosexuality and the binary gender differences
between men and women are normal, and that anything falling outside
of that thinking is deviant. This is a way of thinking that I would like to
complicate. In this essay, I begin to do that by looking at the queer concept
of intersectionality, which holds that all categories of identity, be they sexual
orientation, race, class, gender, etc., are inherently problematic and unstable,
and we would do better to look at an individual as inhabiting all the different
help us to work toward a base of knowledge for understanding how we might
queer our writing in interesting and unexpected ways.
Longfellow — The Art of Sexting 31
years now, but somehow I felt an annotated bibliography with the likes of
well-known theorists such as Gilles Deleuze and Judith Butler, while helpful
in framing this article, wasn’t going to be all that useful for learning about
the other side of things—the sex side of things. In dealing with sex, and
place to turn, for me, was erotica. As luck would have it, there were some old
romance novels lying around from a box of books I’d gotten from a friend.
After a good six pages, I was ready to go, or so I thought. What follows is my
time unaware of this article and of my newfound research interests.
Eric: My quivering sex longs for you.
Jess: Stop it.
Eric: I’m writing an article on sexting.
Jess: Well don’t do it.
By which, I’m pretty sure she meant don’t do it as in don’t actually sext
her and not don’t write the article. Gotta break a few eggs if you’re trying to
was premature, but I wanted to test the waters before attempting anything
serious. My thought process was working off a model of experimentation
as a productive tool. I knew that even if she was slightly annoyed, or even
confused, Jess knew my sense of humor enough that she wouldn’t get angry
or offended. I also knew that to experiment, and yes to fail, is often not a
starting at the bottom, and may I say, the Harlequin romance approach to
sexting is indeed the bottom. I did learn a couple things in looking back,
the medium of text messages; and two, sex as a noun should never be used
as a euphemism for any body parts. Embrace the failure, I thought. So, I
pressed on.
Eric: How moist are you?
Jess: Oh, God.
Eric: Was that last message intended to be in the form of a moan?
Jess: No. No it was not.
I was getting somewhere! Not with Jess, but the notion that sexting
might breed a form of miscommunication with which I was unfamiliar
was something I hadn’t considered. There are probably a lot of dismissive
responses to a sext that could be read as encouragement, or at the very least
complicity. Oh, God was one, but the possibilities started to add up—Please, Oh
yeah?, Come on—really most curt responses could be misread. In order to move
to the next level, I would need to broaden my research base.
Jess’s response was pretty clearly not one of encouragement, and knowing
in advance that she has an aversion to the word moist, it wasn’t hard to see
that coming. But it led me to an interesting conclusion: audience matters.
Reception is an important part of any form of communication. Had I not
known the person I was sexting as well as I know my girlfriend, the outcome
might have been drastically different. And, further, I don’t recommend
sexting anyone unless you are absolutely certain that they will be okay with
it. Thoughtfulness and tact notwithstanding, issues of harassment can be
sending unwelcome sexts. Knowing my audience, I set out to improve my
me sexting other people, but that’s where it gets complicated. I found myself
abound in issues of identity politics. Despite my hopes that we might all
someday queer how we think about identity, I am widely thought to be a white,
male, heterosexual of some privilege. And, further, anyone I might send a sext
to is well aware of those identity markers. Thinking about intersectionality
here raised the issue of not only who I might write to, but also how I might
write if I were, say, female, Asian, Latina/o, transgender—the list goes on. I
wanted to give myself a broader understanding of the role that socio-cultural
context plays in sexting effectively. Even if I don’t plan on regularly sexting
all of my friends, the knowledge of how to do that could provide me with a
better understanding of the complexities involved with the genre.
Instead of attempting to sext friends of different socio-cultural
backgrounds, or to put myself in the place of a background different from my
own, I decided to challenge heteronormativity by exploring the relationships
to power that sexual desire is grounded in. I decided to take my exploration
on a turn toward the kinkier side of sex. So, I was on to non-dominant forms
of erotica to distance myself from the straight, white, male depictions of
sexuality that the romance novels provided. Time to step up my literary game
and dust off my copy of Histoire d’O. After all, if I’m planning to eventually
dynamics that have worked within our individual relationship. And what
better than a critically-acclaimed, female-authored, sadomasochistic novel to
distance me from a heteronormative mindset? I decided to again start light—
experimentation, even in a comical form, allowed me to get my feet wet.
Here’s how it went:
Eric: I’m going to spank you.
Jess: Hmmm.
Eric: Mmmm?
Jess: Hmmm.
Eric: Hmmm.
Jess: . . .
Eric: I’m not going to spank you.
Baby steps. It’s possible that I could have moved further to escalate the
level of sexuality in that set of text messages, but to do so still felt precipitate.
What I picked up, though, and what these somewhat comic exchanges
writing process, was this: when you’re reading erotica, or writing erotica for
that matter, there is a tendency to jump right in. My comedic attempts to
spark something sexual, the way I conducted the research from the beginning;
it was all thrown together rather quickly, which might be okay, but it needs to
be seen as no more than a step in the larger process of writing. It felt to me as
though I wasn’t getting what I needed from my approach to research through
erotica. What’s important here is to recognize the limitations inherent in any
form of research. For one, there are the limitations of focusing on a single
antecedent, or preexisting, genre—in this case, the genre of erotica as a part
of the larger genre of sex writing. While it was very helpful in some ways,
and got me to realize a number of things about the practice of sexting, it
was also incomplete. In addition to that, my own limitations were made clear
research it is likely that deadlines and other obligations will arise. It seems
naïve to think that it’s possible to master the study of erotica at all (even
window of writing this article.
My goal in turning to erotica, of both the mainstream and literary
varieties, was, as I have mentioned, to begin to establish a set of antecedent
shaped how we might approach sexting, but also how those practices have
shaped and have been shaped by our cultural perceptions of sexuality. In
order to write effectively in a given genre (for me, sexting) it is necessary to
understand the trajectory that such a genre has traveled. Here we might
historical and cultural) that a genre moves through. While erotica is only one
form of writing. So, while I did take away a good amount of productive
information from my brief scholarship of erotica, it was time to clearly set my
research parameters and move on.
best sexts. I thought that would give me some direction in terms of how to
craft the most effective sexts, but what it did instead was to interpret best as
or Texts from Last Night, with which I was already somewhat acquainted. I
recognized pretty quickly that the site wasn’t going to be very helpful, in part
more sexual, e.g. the third item on the list of best texts: “and then she said I
drew a line on her forehead with my cum and whispered ‘Simba.’” Potentially
funny, perhaps, but not entirely helpful. Given that research can often lead
down tangential and divergent paths, it’s necessary to recognize when you’re
moving off track and then to move on. So, I changed my search inquiry. But,
before I did it was helpful to stop and consider a few things about my project
as a whole.
My perspective, the perspective of this article, remains grounded within
my relationship to Jess. It is important not to confuse misogyny with sexual
desire (though this is already a fraught concept). My tactic of moving toward
a more kinky approach to sexting is potentially problematic as well—after all,
my position as a male combined with female submissiveness, when not looked
at carefully, can itself seem misogynistic. Lynda Hart, in her book Between the
Body and the Flesh, comments on this very notion saying that:
All our sexualities are constructed in a classist, racist, heterosexist,
and gendered culture, and suppressing or repressing these fantasy
scenarios is not going to accomplish changing that social reality.
[. . .] I do think that being conscious about these issues as they
appear in our desires is important to discuss, theorize and suspect.
(33, emphasis added)
Put differently, we should not let issues of inequality dictate our
sexual desires, but we should be aware that those desires are shaped by
socio-cultural and historical inequalities. I think this is important to note
given our current project of researching and writing within the genre
of sexting, which is often grounded within structures of dominance,
hegemony, and desire. Not far back in this very article, I pulled a quote
from Texts From Last Night’s website that may have been offensive to
some and might have made some readers uncomfortable—in fact, this
entire article may be offensive to and uncomfortable for some readers.
I think that part of what makes that particular quote so offensive is that
very real effects for women in society. Further, the fact that it’s framed
needs to be asked here (and this is a question that is part of a larger and
much more radical argument) is whether or not a quote such as the Simba
one can be productive in working through emotional reactions and (often)
misplaced structures of belief. Can it help us to go deeper and ask why we
and belief structures, it may prove useful to apply Lynda Hart’s advice
to our broader views on sexuality. Rather than dismiss what we deem
offensive, we might heed Hart’s call to “discuss, theorize, and suspect”
it. After all, if the goal is to be more accepting and to challenge what
is considered “normal,” then questioning what makes us uncomfortable
might be the best place to start.
With that in mind, I moved on to searching for “How to sext,” which led
me down a bunch of dead ends. So, I switched to “Best sexting phrases,” and
that turned out to be more productive. The website I found most helpful was
called MadeMan.com. Before I even opened the site, I was slightly put off by the
website’s domain name. MadeMan.com didn’t sound like it had the potential to
work against the issues of misogyny and heteronormativity that I wanted to
disrupt through my exploration of queer theory. But, then I started to really
think about the website’s title. The idea that this socio-cultural notion of what
we consider to be a Man is in fact Made, or culturally constructed, rather
than being something we consider essential, or more simply common sense,
intent in choosing their domain name, thinking about it in these terms is,
in fact, a way to complicate the website and the article, both of which were
presumably written for a dominant, heteronormative, male audience. This
sort of transgressive thinking offers a way to queer the intended reception of
a piece of writing—of any piece of writing. As you read the section that I
have excerpted from the article, I urge you to consider how its use might be
appropriated by a woman, by a gay woman, by a gay woman of color, by a
gay woman of color with a disability, etc.—the ultimate goal being to collapse
these identity markers.
Rather than recount the article on MadeMan.com, I’ll post their top three
sexts and the subsequent descriptions of them:
“Hey, I saw a movie and it got me thinking about you”—
Use this one of the ten best sexting phrases to get the conversation
going. You can tell her about all of the steamy sex scenes that put
you in the mood and run with it from there.
“Send me something naughty”—After you’ve been talking for
a while you can use this one of our ten best sexting phrases to move
the conversation into something really naughty.
“What are you wearing”—Yes we know it sounds cliché, but this
one of our ten best sexting phrases is a classic when you’re trying to
get some action started. She will know exactly where you’re going
with this one of our ten best sexting lines, and it can be the start of
building sexual tension.
This opened up a lot of doors for me. I knew from the beginning that
throwing out explicit, genital related metaphors or imagery would likely not end
well, but seeing examples of how to start slow, and do it effectively, really grounded
the notion of sexting as a process for me—sexting as a process I take to mean the
process of using nuance as a critical element to build toward something, but also,
the process that I needed to go through as a writer: research, experimentation,
failure and persistence allowed me to work through some of the complexities of
the genre. Armed with a more thoughtful foundation of how to proceed when
sexting, I was ready to move on to my new approach that I hoped would elevate
the exchange to a level that Jess and I hadn’t before experienced. I knew that it was
likely not plausible to reach a level of mastery in sexting (if there is such a thing),
but that didn’t really seem all that important. What was important, for me, was
getting to a point where I could write in this genre effectively, on my own terms,
and do it in a way that was in line with what mattered to me. Here is how it went:
Eric: I watched this movie, and it made me think of you.
Jess: Is this a sext thing?
Eric: You’re a sext thing. Boom.
Jess: What movie was it?
Eric: The Piano Teacher. Do you know it?
Jess: Was that Haneke directing?
Eric: It was.
Jess: Did you think of me because I’ve been bad?
Eric: Tell me how you’ve been bad.
[. . .]
There’s more, but you get the picture—we’ll keep it potentially R-rated
lest things start to get weird. Going back to my last research attempt, what I
learned, in the process of synthesizing the information and actually forming
my own sexts, was that what all three of the messages from the website had in
common was that they used the power of suggestion to shift the focus to the
other party. Nuance became important and so did insinuation. It wasn’t until
I physically started to write the sext and to imagine my audience, Jess, reading
that sext that I was able to see how important the dynamic between myself,
as the writer, and Jess, as the reader, really was. To do that I had to consider
a multiplicity of different factors that all became imperative to what I was
writing. Jess and my past sexual history, for example, came into play, but also
all the different factors that went into shaping that sexual history. On top of
in thinking about where Jess would be, what kind of mood she might be in,
what the context of the sext was, where it could travel after being sent, how it
might shift through context, and the list goes on. To extend that even further,
considering how other people from different socio-cultural backgrounds
differ and converge with my own sense of being was vital to understanding
how I could most effectively compose. While it wasn’t possible to consider
every aspect of what goes into writing in this genre, I found that the more I
was able to consider, the better and more effective the sext turned out to be.
and productive to conclude this article by discussing its limitations. I mentioned
before that my own identity was at times problematic for me in undertaking
my sexts to Jess) were in some ways inadequate when attempting to frame the
article within a model of queer theory. Further, the form that the article took,
a personal narrative, made these limitations even more extensive. But rather
than see these relations to hegemonic structures of power as problematic,
or worse hypocritical, it is my hope that the subject position my identity
affords within this article might be taken up by you, the reader, the audience,
as a means of questioning the authority of the text itself—questioning the
authority of all discourses on sexuality—and, foremost, questioning how that
hope that this article might inspire some readers to be transgressive and to
challenge what they accept as common sense.
Works Cited
Blue, Sameerah. “10 Best Sexting Phrases.” Mademan RSS. Break Media, 20
Sept. 2010. Web. 15 Nov. 2012.
Hart, Lynda. Between the Body and the Flesh: Performing Sadomasochism. New York:
Columbia UP, 1998. Print.
Réage, Pauline. Histoire d’O. Paris: J. P. Pauvert, 1972. Print.
“Sexting.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 01 Jan. 2013. Web. 15 Nov. 2012.
“Texts From Last Night.” TFLN RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2012.
The Piano Teacher. Dir. Michael Haneke. By Michael Haneke. MK2 Diffusion,
2001. Film.
Eric Longfellow is pursuing a Ph.D. in English Studies from Illinois State
University specializing in creative writing (primarily fiction). His interests
include gender and sexuality studies and queer theory. It is rumored that
he has an inappropriate tattoo, but he refuses to comment on it.
What You Can, Can’t, and Can’t Not:
How to Decipher What Writing “Rules” Apply and When
Abbie O’Ryan
In this article, O’Ryan breaks down the writing rules that we have always
known and explains what the “real rules” are and aren’t. In order to find
out what rules apply when and where, writers must dive into the conventions of language, style, and genre. Every writing situation is different.
Should the rules be different, too?
Throughout my education, I have been hounded by teachers about
writing rules. Proper writing doesn’t use contractions. “Don’t begin
sentences or paragraphs with quotations,” said the teacher. Don’t
use no double negatives. Wait, did I get that right? I guess it should be that
proper writing does not use contractions. When implementing quotations,
“embed them into the sentence or paragraph,” corrected the teacher.
Multiple negation, commonly called double negatives, should not be used.
What is the point of all of these rules? Here’s a spoiler: these rules don’t even
apply if a writer decides that they don’t matter. It all depends on the writing
situation and the genre in which the writer is composing his or her piece.
For the beginning years of many students’ writing careers, they write in
academic settings where, yes, these rules do apply. But think of how many different
writing situations can be encountered in the rest of a student’s lifetime, or even
just today. Today, I am a college student. I will write a to-do list for my week. I
dates on my calendar. I will text message my friends and family. I will e-mail my
academic advisor about what classes to take next semester. I will comment on
Facebook pictures. I will tweet about something funny my teacher said. And I will
41
Copyright © 2013 by Abbie O’Ryan
write a press release for my public relations class. Furthermore, even though I am
in school now, I will have just as many writing opportunities after I go out into the
“real” world. My purposes may be different in the future, but I will still have to
make to-do lists, compose e-mails, and hopefully write press releases (if I get a job
in PR). The idea here is that in each of these different writing situations, certain
conventions are expected from the audience. Using contractions, implanted
quotations, and multiple negation are not always “dos” or “don’ts.” The regulation
on whether writers should use or avoid these “writing rules” depends on the genre.
Contractions
In school, students are taught that a contraction is two words blended
together to create a shorter word, and they learn where to insert the
apostrophe. Once students learn these things, they are often told, later on
in their schooling, that contractions are not appropriate to use in academic
writing, such as a research paper. Outside of academia, though, contractions
are probably used more than not on a daily basis. Below are some examples
of genres with and without the convention to use contractions.
Title: “A Framework Explaining How Consumers Plan and Book Travel
Online”
Source: International Journal of Management and Marketing Research
Author: Michael Conyette
Also, there was no relationship between enjoyment of booking with a
travel agent and ease of researching travel with the Internet. This implies
respondents who did not enjoy researching with the Internet or found
having no association with the response variables were dropped from
further analysis.
Figure 1. A scholarly article refraining from contraction use.”1
Title: “Sandy slams N.J., plunges parts of NYC into darkness”
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
At least half a million people had been ordered to evacuate, including
375,000 from low-lying parts of New York City, and by the afternoon
authorities were warning that it could be too late for people who had not
left already.
Figure 2. A newspaper article refraining from contraction use.”2
O’Ryan — What You Can, Can’t, and Can’t Not 43
Source: Facebook
Author: E! Online
Pregnant Kate Middleton returns home from the hopsital with Prince
William. http://eonli.ne/RbxNW6
“LIKE” if you think she’s got that motherly glow!
Figure 3. A Facebook post using a contraction. 3
Title: “The School”
Source: Sixty Stories
Author: Donald Barthelme
And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they
died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the
stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the best. We complained about it. So
we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to plant
and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little
brown sticks, it was depressing.
Figure 4. A short story with several contractions.4
As you can see, the scholarly article and the newspaper article omit
contractions, while the Facebook post and the short story allow them. This
basically comes down to formality. In general, if a genre is going to be used
academically or is going to be formally published, writers should not use
contractions. There are exceptions to this, though. Creative writing, such as a
short story, can be found in academic and magazine articles that are published,
and sometimes these genres have contractions. Why? Over the years, the
language patterns of what is sometimes called “standard written English” have
in schools. These “rules” for grammar are now generally recognized, and writers
try to follow these rules in order to display their writing expertise. We can justify
the contractions “rule” more thoroughly when accounting for genre, sub-genre,
and writing situation in order to decide which “writing rules” to use when.
Genre categorizes texts or language.5 Fiction, poetry, and drama are
all examples of genres. Sub-genres are categories within genres, such as an
historical play, a persuasive poem, or a fantasy novel. The writing situation
includes the scene in which a writer writes as well as the purpose for which a
is never a right or wrong way that is set in stone. Quite frankly, this can be
fortunate or unfortunate depending on the writer’s perspective. Just because
a rule is not set in stone does not mean that a writer cannot be “wrong.” To
help with this, authors can study examples of the particular genres they’re
planning to write before writing. It helps to take notice of conventions that
would not usually be used when just sitting down to write without planning.
Quotations
Quotations are used in writing to establish credibility, to relay information,
and to make statements that writers cannot restate better themselves. In different
genres, conventions for using quotations differ. Look at the following examples
of ways to use quotations in scholarly articles as well as newspaper articles.
Online”
Therefore, rationally, consumers’ search should increase when the
importance of the purchase increases. However, search activity for the
information itself casts consumers as well. Perceived cost of information
searching for information”
Figure 5. A scholarly article with an embedded quotation.6
Title: “Sandy slams N.J., plunges parts of NYC into darkness”
Source: Chicago Sun-Times
President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney
canceled their campaign appearances at the very height of the race, with
just over a week to go before Election Day. The president pledged the
government’s help and made a direct plea from the White House to those
in the storm’s path.
“When they tell you to evacuate, you need to evacuate,” Obama said.
“Don’t delay, don’t pause, don’t question the instructions that are being
given, because this is a powerful storm.”
Figure 6. A newspaper article using a quotation to expand on the reader’s knowledge.7
Quotations are implemented differently in each of the above genres. The
author of the scholarly article chose to introduce the quotation and embed it
into his sentence. This seems to be the general way that students are taught
to use quotations. My teachers told me that I cannot let a quotation just hang
out by itself—the quotation means nothing if it has no explanation to back
it up. While this is all well and good, it is not always the case. The general
theme, here, is that nothing can always be the case with writing. For instance,
the given example in Figure 6 above uses a quotation to keep the reader’s
attention after reading the comprehensive lead. This is a common practice
in journalism because audiences will feel more personally connected to a
story with the use of a quotation after learning the important facts. Using a
quotation here is a must in journalism to keep the reader interested in the story,
but it can also be found in many other genres of writing, such as an academic
essay. Thus, my genre research suggests that there is not only one way of
embedding a quotation, especially because some news articles actually take
a more “scholarly” approach and embed quotations into the sentences and
paragraphs. Furthermore, some authors may write differently solely based on
personal style. If a writer chooses to repetitively embed a quotation in a certain
way, or make any consistent style choice for that matter, he or she is creating
his or her own personal writing style. Adhering to personal style, in itself, is a
convention that is accepted more or less by different genres. For example, news
writing is typically factual and straightforward (omitting personal style), while
song writing is all about creativity (embracing personal style).
Multiple Negation
Multiple negation is a language feature that is commonly perceived to be
incorrect. What is accepted as Standard English does not allow for multiple
negation, but who actually speaks Standard English? (Hint: no one.) Why are
we taught the standardized features of grammar and writing throughout our
lives, yet nobody adheres to every rule of Standard English in his or her
everyday speech? In many languages, such as Spanish and African American
English (AAE), multiple negation is part of the grammar of the language. In
Spanish, “a negative particle such as nunca (never) that follows the main verb
in the sentence must be accompanied by the word no (not) preceding the verb,
creating a double negation.” 8 Because of the proper use of multiple negation
in Spanish, many native Spanish speakers who take on English as a second
language continue to practice multiple negation in their translations. Meijer
and Fox Tree also state, “Although Standard English does not allow the
double negation construction, African-American Vernacular English does.”9
Green explains that “[t]he system of using multiple negative elements in one
sentence to express a single negative shows that the fact that two negatives
make a positive in math does not hold in negative marking in AAE.”10 The
use of multiple negation by speakers of Spanish and AAE is not a style choice,
necessarily, but instead is an entirely different grammatical feature that is
correct, and in fact required, in these languages. Still, the use of multiple
negation is often looked down upon, even more so than the incorrect use of
“your” and “you’re,” for example.
With that said, the use of multiple negation can be found in many forms of
writing and across a range of genres. First, consider the scholarly article (Figure 7)
and newspaper article (Figure 8) excerpts below, which include examples of single
negative constructions—“not” and “none”—which, as I’ve already pointed out,
is the more common convention in genres that call for Standard English. Both
genres are academic-style pieces in which multiple negation would not typically
be “allowed.” However, the next two examples (Figures 9 and 10) illustrate two
different examples of genres that use multiple negation constructions.
Online”
Limitations in the study are that survey respondents expressed their
intention to search travel online but these do not
enduring behavioral patterns of subjects. The survey instrument was
administered on the Internet. Subjects were referred to the website which
included the survey and appropriate instructions. Every repondent saw
the same questionnaire and had the same instructions to guide them.
fully understood the questions asked. In addition, consumers without
much Internet experience most likely did not complete the survey.
Figure 7. A scholarly article using a single negative construction.11
Title: “Historians up in arms about archives future”
Source: Chicago Tribune
Author: Rex W. Huppke
D’Emilio and others who have served on the library’s board say that
such dramatic changes to the bylaws would have required a membership
meeting, and they say that none took place.
Figure 8. A newspaper article using a single negative construction.12
Title: “Satisfaction”
Author: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
I can’t get no satisfaction
I can’t get no satisfaction
‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no
Figure 9. Song lyrics that use multiple negation.13
Title: Twelfth Night
Author: William Shakespeare
By innocence I swear, and by my youth
I have one heart, one bosom, and one truth,
And that no woman has, nor never none
Shall mistress be of it, save I alone.
Figure 10. A play using multiple negation.14
Although they both use multiple negation, each of the genres portrayed
in Figures 9 and 10 above are accepted by the public for different reasons. The
Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” is an anthem of sorts. The band has a very large
fan base, and with that, their music is widely accepted. The catchy tune of the
song, in my opinion, has created a haze over the “incorrect” double negative
construction, “I can’t get no satisfaction,” so perhaps Rolling Stones fans have
never given the song’s “correctness” a second thought. I can also see how this
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, similarly, is in a legendary position. At the time in
which this piece was written, English as a language was in a transition process.
According to Baugh and Cable, “For a long time English permitted the use
of double negative. We have now discarded it through a false application of
mathematical logic to language; but in Elizabethan times it was felt merely as a
stronger negative.”15 Thus, some scholars would argue that Shakespeare’s “nor
never none” aims to achieve a purpose, to show extremity, to make the audience
pay attention. In my opinion though, I don’t think Shakespeare’s intention
stylistic purpose, or he could have been attempting to negotiate a feature of a
language in the midst of change. Regardless, respect for Shakespeare’s work is
so great that no matter the reason, audiences saw and continue to see his plays
as art. Like Shakespeare, writers must always keep in mind the conventions of
the language, the genre, and their own personal style, while acknowledging that
they may not enjoy the level of prestige that Shakespeare has gained.
Conclusion
With writing rules, there is never an always. Nothing is ever set in stone.
The decision regarding whether or not to adhere to certain rules depends
on the genre, sub-genre, writing situation, audience expectations, culture,
language, and writing style. I have personally noticed differences in the use
of contractions, quotations, and multiple negation since I have made the
transition from high school to college writing situations. In the near future,
I will no longer be writing for school assignments, and the style I take on
with each writing situation will be up to me. New writing situations will be
presented, and I will have to analyze the conventions for the genres I’m
writing in, which may include investigating uses of contractions, quotations,
and multiple negation, among other traditional “writing rules.” If writers
remember to keep the genre conventions and the audience in mind, they will
be successful. As time goes on and Standard English changes, many of the
“rules” that apply now may be altered or even forgotten all together. New
“rules” will form, too. Just remember to adhere to the conventions of the
genre, and do not apply any writing rule across the board!
Endnotes
1. Conyette, Michael. “A Framework Explaining How Consumers Plan
and Book Travel Online.” International Journal of Management and Marketing
Research (IJMMR) 5.3: 57-67. 2012. Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost,
February 8, 2013.
2. Associated Press. “Sandy Slams N.J., Plunges Parts of NYC Into
Darkness.” Chicago Sun Times. October 31, 2012. http://www.suntimes.
com/16029640-761/nyc-waters-rise-to-irene-levels-before-superstormsandy.html.
3. “E! Online.” Facebook. December 6, 2012. http://www.facebook.com/
eonline.
4. Barthalme, Donald. “The School.” Sixty Stories. University of Michigan,
January 1, 1995. http://www.npr.org/programs/death/readings/stories/
bart.html.
5. Bruce, Ian. “Operationalization of Genre As a Categorizer of Academic
and Professional Texts: A Review of Construct Validity in Six Landmark
Studies.”
11.1: 4355. Humanities International Complete, EBSCOhost. October 31, 2012.
6. Conyette, Michael. “A Framework Explaining How Consumers Plan and
Book Travel Online.”
7. Associated Press. “Sandy Slams N.J., Plunges Parts of NYC Into
Darkness.”
8. Meijer, Paul J. A. and Fox Tree, Jean E. “Building Syntatic Structures
in Speaking: A Bilingual Exploration.” Experimental Psychology 50.3: 184195. 2003.
9. Meijer, Paul J. A. and Fox Tree, Jean E. “Building Syntatic Structures in
Speaking: A Bilingual Exploration.”
10. Green, Lisa. “A Descriptive Study of African American English: Research in
Linguistics and Education.” Qualitative Studies in Education 15.6: 673-690. 2002.
http://web.linguist.umass.edu/people/lisagreen/A%20descriptive%20
study%20of%20AAE.pdf.
11. Conyette, Michael. “A Framework Explaining How Consumers Plan and
Book Travel Online.”
12. Huppke, Rex W. “Historians Up in Arms About Archives Future.”
Chicago Tribune. April 26, 2012. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/
local/ct-met-gerber-hart-20120426,0,4489781.story.
13. Jagger, Mick and Richards, Keith. “Satisfaction.” United Kingdom, August 20,
1965. http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/rolling+stones/satisfaction_10243634.
html.
14. Shakespeare, William. “Twelfth Night.” First Folio. 1623. Act 3, Scene 1,
Page 8. http://nfs.sparknotes.com/twelfthnight/page_132.html.
15. Baugh, Albert C., and Thomas Cable. A History of the English Language,
Fifth Edition: 232. 2002.
Abbie O’Ryan is a junior public relations major at Illinois State University. She is a proud
member of Alpha Gamma Delta sorority where she has served on the executive council.
She also loves to travel and aspires to visit all fifty states in her lifetime.
The Trend of the Pen: A Study of the Writing Attitudes and Habits of ISU Freshmen
JoeyLauren Jiracek
This article explores a freshman’s transition from high school writing to
college writing. Jiracek reports on a survey she conducted of ISU freshmen writers. The results reveal threads of similarity among freshmen
composers/writers. The information gained by conducting this survey,
along with Jiracek’s reflections on her own process of writing the survey,
reveal how freshman can work with their attitudes towards writing to help
the transition go smoothly.
JoeyLauren Jiracek is a 2012 recipient of the ISU Writing Program
Undergraduate Writing Research Scholarship.
Picture this! It’s four o’clock on a Friday afternoon. A group of college
freshmen arrive to their last class of the day: English 101. While patiently
waiting for the class to start, they notice the professor carrying a large stack
of papers. “Could it be another writing assignment?” they wonder. Everyone
sits on the edge of his or her seat with anticipation. The professor smiles at
their obvious excitement and asks, “Who’s ready to write a paper?!” The
class unanimously cheers about the new writing assignment! Everyone high-
of paper they see. In no time, the class is over and the students are free, but
all the students are so focused on their writing that they continue to work
throughout the night and weekend!
If you are thinking that this would never happen, then you are probably
right. Perhaps the situation described would be accurate if everyone loved to
complete writing for the classroom, but we all know that everyone has his or
her own attitudes towards writing in this situation. We often see students easily
draft up emails, create Facebook statuses, and send daily text messages; many
students wouldn’t think twice before writing in these particular situations. But
51
Copyright © 2013 by JoeyLauren Jiracek
when it comes time to write for a school paper, these same students get tripped
up! Granted, there are students who enjoy the process, but for the average college
freshman, writing in a classroom setting can be stressful. Think about how you
feel when you are faced with a writing assignment: Does this type of writing come
naturally to you? Can you easily transfer your ideas into written sentences? Do
you panic over requirements or struggle with writer’s block before you even begin?
Maybe you are somewhere in the middle, or maybe you think that it just depends
on the nature of the writing assignment and how comfortable you feel about it.
When I was enrolled in English 101 at Illinois State University, I was
exposed to a variety of writing assignments, ranging from a natural disaster
report to a restaurant review. I was suddenly being asked to express myself
through text in ways that I had not been asked to before by exploring new
styles of writing. I found that the assignments I was completing were much
different than the ones I had written in high school. My experience also
allowed me to think of the writing process in a different way. My English
101 course stressed that each piece of writing could be considered its own
“genre.” I learned that every type of writing has its own unique elements and
also have trouble writing in a new genre or style because they have been
format. This structured writing limits the creativity of students and does not
allow much room for development. Being exposed to new styles of writing in
college can allow people to grow into more experienced writers, but we all
know that this transition from high school to college writing is easier said than
done. After completing my freshman year, I wondered, what—if anything—
could help ease this transition for future freshmen?
My Hypothesis
college writing. Although it may seem trivial, I believe that one’s attitude and
writing habits will directly affect how smooth the writing process will go. I feel
habits. If students are aware of their attitudes towards writing and personal
writing habits, then they can target their problem areas, enhance their skills,
and experience a successful transition into college writing. Ultimately this will
reduce the stress that students feel about writing in general and make one’s
college writing experiences more enjoyable. Before going out to research my
topic, I developed three research questions:
Jiracek — The Trend of the Pen 53
1. What beliefs and habits do college freshmen have about writing?
2. How can these beliefs and habits affect their writing processes?
3. Based on prior writing beliefs and habits, what are some effective ways to
improve writing skills?
In order to research the answers for myself, I conducted a survey based on these
questions. The survey would serve two purposes: to gain a better understanding
of how the students at Illinois State feel about their writing processes and to push
myself to try a new genre of writing that I had never tackled before. Because this
an opportunity for me to write in an unfamiliar genre.
Creating the Survey
would the questions be geared towards, and how would I reach them? I decided
that my audience would be Illinois State students enrolled in English 101. I
knew that this class would be made up of freshmen and that their responses
would be the most relatable for future students in the same course. I decided to
create an online survey through Survey Monkey because it would be the easiest
prefer this method because many students are familiar with social media and
online resources. The next thing I pondered was how many questions I would
ask and how they would be written. The survey was ultimately composed of ten
questions, some multiple choice and some open-ended. I preferred the openended questions because then students would be able to respond in a more
personal way; this would allow me to see the differences between individual
students as opposed to broad generalizations. However, I kept the multiple-choice
questions because I wanted to have precise responses and results as well. After
creating the survey, I asked three English 101 classes to participate in the survey,
and over a two-week period, I received 28 responses. After the survey responses
were collected, I reviewed the students’ answers and then thought about how I
would respond to the questions myself. In the following section I have reported
the actual survey questions, the results, and some thoughts regarding how my
experience with writing in the survey genre relates to each response.
Survey Questions and Results
Question One
Generally speaking, how interested are you in writing?
The majority of respondents said that they have some interest in writing,
depending on the assignment and/or reason for writing. This means that a
lot of students like the writing process when they enjoy what they are writing
style is, this leads to a positive attitude and will make assignments seem easier
and more enjoyable.
My Experience
I didn’t initially know much about the conventions of the genre, I thought
that it would be an interesting way to reveal the information I was seeking.
The overall process of conducting my survey took a while, but I realized that
I enjoyed it. However, not everything about writing is going to be interesting.
I realized that there are going to be genres that you prefer more than others,
and that’s okay! Thus, a person’s interest in their topic and genre can have an
impact on their writing process.
Question Two
Which statement is a better statement of your attitude towards the writing process?
writing process will go smoothly, which demonstrates a positive attitude.
Based on the survey results, it seems that the writing process begins with
My Experience
When I started this survey genre project, I had a positive attitude. I
thought that I would be able to create a simple survey that would reveal what
was challenged when I started writing the results of the survey—this article.
I came across problems with interpreting the results without sounding too
much like an expert writer myself. When my attitude was challenged, I found
I feel discouraged or nervous about the writing process, I try to pinpoint
what is causing my angst. For some people, having a negative attitude in the
beginning of the process stems from their own past writing struggles. I have
found that being in tune with your attitude towards writing can affect your
writing performance during any part of the writing process.
Question Three
What is the hardest part about writing?
Students’ responses to this open-ended question were that starting out and
picking a topic were the hardest parts about writing. One student said, “I think
that the hardest part about writing is starting off the papers and getting all the
different ideas I have in my head to translate well on paper.” Another student
said, “Finding creative things to write about, and extending your ideas to make
papers and assignments longer in length is the hardest part about writing.”
My Experience
When writing in the survey genre, I also encountered idea generation
and translation issues. Although I knew what aspects of the writing process
I wanted to research, I was not sure what questions would be the most
effective to identify my participants’ writing attitudes and habits. When I
peers, family, or a professor. In this situation, my father and my advisor
from the English department helped me brainstorm, and they reassured
me that my topic choice was a good one. It was interesting to see how my
obstacles during this project matched other students’ troubles during the
writing process.
Question Four
Describe your strengths as a writer.
This question studies students’ habits. Some people agreed that creativity
idea in my head and I start writing, I just keep typing and do not stop,” while
another student said, “I don’t know what I would consider my strength as
a writer, I feel like it depends on the assignment.” Overall, it seemed that
some students were able to identify their strengths, while others had trouble
identifying their strengths.
My Experience
At the beginning of this project, I thought that my strength in writing in the
draft of questions ended up being a little wordy for the survey genre, I was able to
successfully edit them to be more precise. In addition to discovering my strengths,
the role of “expert advisor.” I learned that while understanding my strengths and
utilizing them in my writing is helpful, discovering bad habits through review
and feedback can help me learn and improve my writing skills as well.
Question Five
Do you prefer open-ended writing assignments with minimal guidelines, or highly structured
ones with many guidelines? Please explain your answer.
When asked, the majority of students preferred highly structured
assignments. Most students said something similar to this response, provided
by one student: “I prefer highly structured writing assignments because they
are to the point about what is expected which makes the writing process
easier.” Only a few students made comments like this response: “I prefer
open-ended with minimal guidelines. This allows the writer to express their
created this question to study students’ attitudes to determine if they are
open-minded. The majority of freshmen enjoy a structured assignment
because it tells them exactly what they need to do. Sometimes students just
want to know what guidelines to meet in order to get a good grade. High
school usually emphasizes the importance of these structured assignments, so
it makes sense that the students prefer this option.
My Experience
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I found that after high
to have an open mind when writing with minimal guidelines. Once students
are open to writing in different genres, they can do the research necessary
pinpoint key features to include in their genre, which ultimately synthesizes
into their own style. While writing in the survey genre, I kept an open mind and
used resources that included on-line surveys written by credible researchers. I
Question Six
When writing in an unfamiliar genre and/or writing situation, I feel __________.
Explain.
In this measure of attitude, most students felt stressed and overwhelmed
when asked to write in an unfamiliar genre. One student said, “Overwhelmed.
Most people have their niche in writing and their preferred genre. Getting
for what is expected in the new genre.” This response is similar to preferring
familiar and structured assignments. It’s understandable that the majority
of participants felt anxious, but some students viewed the ambiguity as a
challenge. One student said, “I feel challenged. Even though it may be hard to
adapt to the different conventions, learning new genres is always interesting.”
My Experience
I believe that viewing new genres as a challenge is the better approach. If
students are unfamiliar with a style of writing, they shouldn’t be afraid to ask
best way to overcome unfamiliar genres is to become familiar with them. As
previously mentioned, by doing research on the survey genre, I was able to
gain a better understanding of the genre’s components, which put me at ease
while writing this survey.
Question Seven
of the library, etc.).
One student responded, “Somewhere quiet and comfortable with no one
around and no distractions.” A student with opposite feeling said, “Anywhere
that does not make me feel like I am isolated in the world. I prefer a coffee shop
with are around me.” This question got students to think about their writing
themselves in a quiet area. Usually they like to be somewhere relaxing, like a
bed. Other students mentioned having music playing softly.
My Experience
Throughout the survey writing process, I always removed any
distractions and made sure I had a clear head before I started to write. I
for students to know their ideal environment. Your environment lets you
express your ideas more freely. Being in the wrong environment can cause
added stress or procrastination.
Question Eight
How do you usually manage your time while writing?
I tend to divide the assignment and/or writing situation into smaller tasks,
The data on time management habits were not surprising. Procrastination
among college students is a common stereotype, especially for freshman, who are
busy adjusting to their new environment. It’s easy to push writing assignments
aside when they are trying to balance other classwork and free time.
My Experience
My strategy of planning early really aided in creating my survey. Writing the
survey and interpreting the results took me a whole semester. However, I found that
this assignment seemed less intimidating when I broke it down into manageable
questions would have been too broad and confusing to the audience. As I reviewed
each subsequent draft, my questions became clearer and more concise. If students
start an assignment the night before it’s due, it can cause unnecessary stress and
may not leave room for improvement. Students may not be able to reach their full
writing potential if the assignment they are turning in is basically a rough draft.
Question Nine
How often do you use prewriting techniques such as mind maps or outlines to organize
your ideas?
According to the survey results, the majority of English 101 students never
or rarely use prewriting techniques. Some students commented that they only
create outlines or multiple drafts when the teacher requires them to, perhaps
because most college students simply want to complete the assignment. This
rather than consciously thinking or writing before beginning a draft.
My Experience
Although outlines are not for everyone, I found that outlining helped me
structure and organize my thoughts when creating my survey. When looking
back on my project notes for creating the survey, I could see how my thoughts
general ideas and questions I wanted to ask for my research. In the survey
genre, every researcher has a hypothesis that they aim to prove or disprove.
I needed to make sure that each question related back to my hypothesis. My
outlines and notes were useful in referring back to my initial survey goals.
words. When they can refer back to an outline, it can usually help them with
assignment, brainstorming or mind mapping can at least help to generate
some ideas.
Question Ten
Is writing important? Why or why not?
This last survey question measures participants’ attitudes again. When
asked this question, every student indicated that they thought that writing
is important in one way or another. One student responded, “Writing is
extremely important. Writing is what gets thoughts from your brain to other
people. Speaking does that too, but writing is more permanent. There’s a
record of it somewhere, and you can refer back to it. Writing is an excellent
form of expression that more people should take advantage of.”
My Experience
If there is one thing I have learned through my transition from high
genre’s unique features is crucial. When writing in the survey genre, I learned
that it is important to consider the target audience, the types of questions,
distribution methods, and data interpretation. Embracing writing in a variety
of genres has helped me expand my writing capabilities. Keeping a positive
know what I will be asked to compose. Whether it is a project report or quick
email to my boss, my writing needs to be effective and formatted accurately.
Final Thoughts
Looking back on this endeavor, I can see how creating a survey helped
identify the trend of the pen. The results showed common beliefs and
habits that Illinois State freshmen have about writing. My initial intention in
writing and to practice the skill of writing in an unfamiliar genre. I realize now,
though, that by writing my own survey, I was demonstrating how attitudes
and habits could affect a person’s writing process, especially when taking on
an unfamiliar genre. The transition into college writing can be achieved when
one’s beliefs and habits and understanding how to utilize and adjust them
can reduce the stress of writing, make writing more pleasurable, and help all
writers recognize their full writing potential!
JoeyLauren Jiracek is a sophomore at Illinois State University majoring in Public Relations. She is from Mokena, Illinois. In her
spare time, she enjoys shopping, listening to music, and especially
attending Zumba classes with her friends. Her ideal job would be
to combine her love of fashion and public relations and work for a
company that would satisfy both!
The Memoir as Inquiry to Self Discovery
Miles Maggio
In this article, Maggio asks readers to revisit their memories of lifechanging moments, breaking down the rigid walls of confusion that separate them from their past. Maggio suggests that, by writing in genres
that allow for creativity, we can relive the past and discover who we are
and where we have come from, adjusting our future actions in light of
our past tendencies.
Miles Maggio is a 2012 recipient of the ISU Writing Program Undergraduate Writing Research Scholarship.
Think about that special event that changed your life. For the most
part, each of us has had an event in our life we can call a “turning point.”
Whether it happened over a few minutes or a few years, this was a time in
be to analyze this “turning point”? Well, consider all the actions and decisions
you will encounter in your future. Each of these choices will depend on your
past experiences. Having an understanding of the tendencies of your past
and their consequences will allow you to have a better understanding of your
future. For example, if my tendency is to underestimate how many spelling
errors I make and the consequences have been red ink on my papers, then I
will, after reconciling the problem through an “isolating method,” realize that
I should proofread cautiously.
Why Write About Your Past?
The “isolating method” I am referring to is writing. There are many
studies (cf. Chinn, 1994; Ganea, 2007; Schaller, 1997) that indicate that the
61
Copyright © 2013 by Miles Maggio
same part of our brain that allows us to think methodically also helps us
remember our past. The part of your brain that distinguishes between you and
your environment is the same region of your brain that uses past experiences
to project your possibilities into the future (Radiolab, 2010). More to the
as a mechanism to articulate past experiences is very accommodating to fully
developing—and therefore better understanding—these past experiences
(Chinn, 1994). For example, neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor wrote her book,
My Stroke of Insight, about the morning of her stroke that temporarily caused
her to lose her language, memories of the past, and sense of self (Taylor,
2011). In her book, she describes the transparent relationship between losing
language and losing her own identity. She indicates that without language
there are no “inner voices” that allow us to do just about anything with our
past. Consequently, without language there are no “inner voices” that allow
us to speculate about our future. Therefore, we could guess that encompassing
our past into a language format makes it more concrete or rigid in our mind—
like focusing the camera.
mechanism we should use to invoke our past, writing is the best language
format for this analysis for many reasons. For one, writing is slow enough
to allow the memories to emerge (Chinn, 1994). Nursing journals, such as
Advances in Methods of Inquiry for Nursing, also advocate for the use of writing
as inquiry to learn about past experiences. Allowing time to recall your past
enables the authentic story to be displayed (authenticity is vital to the writing
process, as indicated later). If we talk about our past, it’s much more likely
that we will run across something we can’t recall immediately, so, for the
audience’s sake, the story being told is made up or guessed.
In my young, naive perspective, I recalled a past experience in my
memoir, On the Tree Branch:
Grandpa asked me to stay in the living room because the adults
were going to talk about adult things. I felt kind of left out, so I sat
in the middle of the living room where I could hear sounds coming
from both ends of the kitchen as they traveled around the staircases
and kitchen closet. I started looking through the comics section as
they talked.
I could pick up little snippets of the conversation like a “court
date” coming up and some “legal stuff.” I kind of tuned out to
do some well-needed thinking before I realized they were talking
about mom—alcoholism and divorce. “Yeah, we’re going to have
to get a divorce. There is no way around it,” Dad said, almost
unemotionally.
Maggio — The Memoir as Inquiry to Self Discovery 63
That was it for me; when I heard those words, my thoughts started
to pour out. I tried to hold it in despite the fact that there was no
one around—I just couldn’t. It was too much. My parents were
getting a divorce and there was nothing I could do about it. I didn’t
understand why they couldn’t just get over their differences and
make up. It wasn’t that hard—so many stories ended up that way
in the movies.
It was hard to believe that this was actually going to happen; in
movies I’d seen, situations got much worse than this, yet they still
ended up getting back together in the end. When he said this, I
knew it was reality and that there was no going back. It hurt to
under the tears I’d been bombarding him with. He still seemed to
say the things he wanted to say; I don’t know why I had a problem
speaking up.
Before I knew it, Dad left without saying goodbye. He seemed
extremely rushed and anxious to get things moving along. He just
kind of blurred in and out of my life real fast. He must have been
real busy.
This experience was merely part of the larger turning point; however,
while writing about this memory, I realized a few key things about the
experience that I hadn’t discovered before. For starters, why is this event so
scenario through this writing process, the memory was frail. Fortunately,
the only one who experienced my naive perspective was me, so I began the
process. In doing so, I realized important aspects of my thoughts such as why
I thought divorce was such a horrible thing, why I thought that my parents
speak up. I now realize, for example, that divorce isn’t as terrible as I thought
put my siblings and me in a somewhat more stable environment. Through
this process, I was able to derive the lesson that I should be less concerned
about other people’s decisions because they may see many components of the
situation that I do not. This method of writing about my past really allowed
me to think critically about how I think in comparison to others.
An additional perk to writing about your past includes the mere fact
writing. I wrote a book-length memoir, but you can literally write in any genre
the genre you are inherently drawn to and/or the genre you enjoy writing in.
Some writers might say that when they write, they feel consumed and/or
surrounded by the plot. Writing a memoir of my childhood certainly allowed
better understand it. Knowing who you are is key to recognizing and therefore
resolving your inherent tendencies for a stronger foundation in the future.
How Do I Find My Genre?
While choosing your genre, there are a few questions you can ask yourself:
These are only guidelines intended to be taken loosely, but try imagining
you are still having trouble deciding which genre may be yours, ask a friend or
someone who knows your personality. If you have a BFF (best friend forever)
or BBF (best bro forever), and he or she knows you well enough, ask him or
her to choose your genre. As a last resort, just start writing in a genre and
another one. Remember that once you start writing in that genre, it does not
mean you are married to it for the rest of your life. Take this time to discover
another part of yourself and your style. That’s what writing should be about.
How Do I Write About My Past In My Genre?
Once you have chosen your genre you may need to continue to get
that turning point in your mind. If you need to write out a chronology
of an event (or set of events), go right ahead. Though not everyone may
need a chronology, it can be important for more elaborate plots because
understanding the direction of your changing perception and moods during
events allows you to better understand who you are today. For example, when
I was ten pages into my book, many important events were swirling in my
pieces of paper, sprawled them out on a table, and evenly spaced out the
years. I drew segments on the time line according to when an event took place,
labeled the segments, and gave a brief description of each segment. You do
not necessarily need to go to that degree, but it certainly worked for me.
Next, you might check out some other writers that write in your genre.
Generally, writers write in a tone that makes their audience relate to and be
comforted by the plot, so we should look to experienced authors for tone in
helping us relate to the audience. For example, during the imminent loss of a
loved one, the author may present a tone of denial, speaking as if the loved
one will be there next week until the all too familiar tone of reality sets in,
allowing the audience to relate to the tone. As a kind of reference point and
inspiration to my writing, I reread sections of A Long Way Gone by Ishmael
Beah and many other memoirs as I paid close attention to style and tone. Just
for dialogue styles (the way conversations are written), I also read sections from
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The more authors you reference,
the easier it’ll be for you to connect to your audience in your given genre.
Make sure that you do not try to write in the exact same tone as another
author though because your audience is reading about your past to get your
unique perspective on life. I couldn’t even get close to the tone of the narrator
in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but even if I could, it wouldn’t be mine.
Now you may have noticed while reading this article that I have changed
my tone. I have gone from a professional tone (to provide you with research on
the topic) to a more conversational and colloquial tone (to demonstrate how this
and learn from our experiences, reactions and perspectives toward new events
a situation. Although you are not necessarily informing your audience directly,
you will have a theme that lets the reader hear about a life lesson of some
sort. It’s important to analyze these new reactions and perspectives because
they are the primordial synthesis of your current day reactions and moods.
Understanding your past reactions can allow you to better understand your
reactions and moods today, and therefore, enable you to adjust accordingly.
In the passage from my memoir above, I changed tone according to the mood
of the narrator because I had new moods, reactions, and outlooks towards my
dad and his divorce. Analyzing these changes or “turning points” helped me
better understand my place in life at that time, and now. In essence, without
of practice but in time it can make your writing much more nuanced.
While keeping that in mind, let’s return to a point that I mentioned
earlier: you must be authentic in this form of writing. Try not to worry about
adding, deleting, or manipulating your writing in any way. While I was writing,
I made sure I could picture the scene in my head before I wrote it. If I wasn’t
authentic, I would have been reshaping my past in my mind in a way that
my past, I have a false sense of self that will not prove fruitful when coming
to terms with myself and my experiences. Remember: the whole purpose of
this process is to discover you, not someone you want to be. And because this
kind of writing is meant solely for your own use, there is no reason to falsify
it for audience’s sake. As stated before, the design of this method will allow
us to put our past into writing, which is a more concrete and rigid structure
than memory, allowing us to better understand ourselves. With this sense of
as a better perspective to move forward. When we recognize and internalize
our own tendencies, we are better equipped to plan and execute future ones.
It matters that I realize this tendency, the cause of the tendency, and that
I can take a second guess at the consequences of future situations. Along
like my experience with writing about divorce, you too can receive a much
better understand of how we react to turning points in our life. Another, more
straightforward trend that I discovered was my tendency to underestimate
how bad I spell. I’ve been getting better at that, too.
Give exploring your memory through writing a try. You don’t need to write
over two hundred pages for this method to work; just pick your genre, “turning
point,” and representative tones, and then allow your memories to emerge. In
the context of utilizing this method, stay true to your past, and you should be
and make your future goals accordingly. I noticed that the process improved
my past and wrote it all down, I can now look at it again and again, whenever I
want to, to help me develop a more concrete foundation for my future.
References
Beah, I. (2007). A long way gone: Memoirs of a boy soldier. (1st ed.). New York:
Sarah Crichton Books.
Chinn, P. L. (1994). Advances in methods of inquiry for nursing. Writing as
, 5, 12-62.
things unseen: Infants’ use of language to update mental representations.
Psychological Science, (8), 734-739.
Twain, M. (1901). Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (1st ed.). Mineola, New York:
Dover Publications.
Radiolab. (Producer). (2010, August 9). A world without words [Audio podcast].
Retrieved from http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/a-world-withoutwords/.
A man without words. Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press.
Shusterman, A., Spelke, E. S. (2005). Language and the development of
The innate mind: Structure and contents (89-106). New York, NY: Oxford
University Press.
Taylor, J. B. (2011). My stroke of insight: A brain scientist’s personal journey. New
York, NY: Plume.
Miles Maggio is a sophomore physics major at Illinois State University.
Miles loves to learn and integrate writing, debate, and Christian apologetics into his education. One of his life-long endeavors includes discovering
the unified theory between general relativity and quantum mechanics.
Miles has written a book, On the Tree Branch, a memoir of his childhood.
The rest are details.
Screenplay Writing: The Art of Writing Films
Brandon Stark
This article is about Stark’s journey of discovering screenplay writing and
how it has affected him. He also explains some beginner’s tips on how
to write a screenplay and how to do so with an original style. The goal of
this article is to present screenplay writing as a genre option, especially
for people who love movies, like Stark.
Brandon Stark is a 2012 recipient of the ISU Writing Program Undergraduate Writing Research Scholarship.
I’m a movie guy. Always have been, always will be. I’m the kind of
guy who will spend hours talking about certain movies and what they
mean or symbolize. When I was younger, my parents showed me all kinds
of movies that inspired my creativity. Terminator Two: Judgment Day, Star
Wars, and Alien were only a few of the many that prompted me to become
a movie-goer. Movies let people’s minds wander into imaginary worlds
to surprise, shock, or thrill them through the stories they tell. Films are
portals to get away from everyday life as we get pulled into the thought-up
worlds on screen. Movies make us feel all kinds of emotions of excitement
and happiness (depending on the movie). We meet characters that we’ll
remember for what they did or some iconic phrase they said. Films can
amaze us because of the amount of layers they have to keep their stories
interesting and powerful.
Having built up my fascination for movies from a young age, eventually
I came to my sophomore year of high school: the year I started developing
my own screenplays. I remember watching a behind-the-scenes making
Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, and realizing that Alien is such
69
Copyright © 2013 by Brandon Stark
consider to be one of the greatest movies ever made. The behind-the-scenes
Alien and shows parts of the original
stopped the movie to view the format of the screenplay; I wanted to
investigate this genre, the writing behind the movie. I had been aware of
what screenplays were, but before that moment, I had never taken the time
to really look at one.
After getting only a few seconds of reading the actual screenplay of one
of my favorite movies, I immediately felt the need to get more exposure to this
genre: I wanted to read full-length screenplays. I wanted to read the stories
could tell stories so well. I searched the Internet until I stumbled upon the
to learning how to write my own screenplays. I studied screenplays such as
Titanic, Pulp Fiction, Alien, and many more to become familiar with the style
and the strict format. I soon realized that this would not be enough. I was
reading screenplays to gain familiarity with them, but I needed instructions
as to how to properly write one of my own. I needed a step-by-step guide for
building my own screenplays.
found the book that would open my world to screenplays even more: The
Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide to Script Format and Style
by Christopher Riley. The book allowed me to go further with my screenplay
writing research than I had before. Riley explains the conventions for what I
now think of as all the important aspects of a screenplay:
1. Introducing a scene
2. Properly introducing a character
3. The importance of dialogue
4. Off-screen sounds
5. Scene visualization
6. Character details
After reading the book and reviewing it as much as I could, I’ve
become much more knowledgeable in writing my own screenplays. The
many screenplay writers make. From this research, I was able to build
Stark — Screenplay Writing 71
myself up and write the stories I wanted to, in the format I want to write
them in.
One of the lessons I have learned about screenplay writing, and
which I think is true of other genres as well, is that a writer must grow
into his or her own style of writing. Writers may get inspiration from
other writers, but copying another writer’s style won’t get them far. When
writers have their own styles, it allows them to stand out from everyone
else. For example, I think Stephen King is one of the greatest living
authors of our time. His way of storytelling and providing gripping detail
is such that readers all over the world know when they’re reading one of
King’s tales. Writers should be able to demonstrate who they are in their
writing; when someone reads a writer’s work, the reader should be able
to identify whose work they’re reading by the way the author has written
it. Screenplay writers need to write according to the general conventions
and format of the genre of the screenplay, but they must also tell their
stories in such a way that readers would automatically recognize who
wrote the screenplay. Of course, this doesn’t happen right away when
someone is just trying out the genre and is usually only the case for very
famous, successful screenplay writers, but it’s still a good goal to keep in
mind. One step towards this goal is for screenplay authors to develop skills
in visualization.
In this way, screenplay writing is similar to other kinds of writing. A
screenplay writer must be able to create a strong visual impression with his
or her words. By this I mean that a screenplay writer should compose in such
a way so that whoever is reading his or her script can visualize the story with
great detail. Screenplay writers need to develop the writing skills to create a
world that their readers (and eventually viewers) can visualize and understand
easily. A great example would be Star Wars or James Cameron’s Avatar. Both
for readers to get a “visual understanding” of the setting and scenes. In order
for the visuals to be born on screen the way the writer conceives of them,
the writer must put them on paper in such a way to allow his or her vision
to come through. Screenplay writers need to be able to create this “visual
understanding” so well that the reader won’t want to put the script down.
chance to have their work read and enjoyed.
Let’s take a look at some examples, now, to investigate some of the
conventions of creating a screenplay with the kind of visualization techniques
I’ve been talking about. Screenplays start out by explaining where the story
takes place. Consider this example:
Properly introduce
scene; remember it’s
like watching a movie.
This is the direction.
It takes place inside
a house, inside the
kitchen, at night time,
specifically, eight
thirty.
When introducing
characters into the
story, their names
or referents must be
capitalized in to show
the importance to the
reader.
Also, objects that
make noises must be
capitalized, and the
noise they make must
be capitalized as well.
Explain what’s going
on. Give the reader a
picture in their head.
This is the first
character and his
dialogue.
This is the second
character and his
dialogue.
If you want to be
more specific with the
camera angles, feel
free to do so. This
can only help with
visualization.
FADE IN:
INT. HOUSE – KITCHEN - NIGHT – 8:30
TWO MEN sit across from each other at a long table.
Each MAN has a GUN. The TWO MEN grin at each other.
Hatred burns in their eyes. The MAN ON THE LEFT side
of the table has a scar going down the right side of
his face. It’s been there a while. The MAN ON THE
RIGHT side of the table has a fresh cut on his left
cheek and his right eye is starting to bruise. They
both wear farmers’ clothes mixed with some cowboy
style to them.
MAN ON THE LEFT
I never thought we’d be here.
MAN ON THE RIGHT
I knew we would one day.
The grin stays on both faces. The TWO MEN lift the
GUNS off the table and click the safeties off. The
GUNS are pointing at each other.
MAN ON THE LEFT
Ready partner?
MAN ON THE RIGHT
Let’s dance.
The CAMERA ZOOMS OUT with the TWO MEN pointing the
guns at each other. The screen fades to black and we
hear CHAIRS FALLING, MULTIPLE GUNSHOTS, and WINDOWS
BREAKING.
Always capitalizing the names emphasizes to the reader who is doing or
saying what. Similarly, capitalizing something that is making noise and the
noise it makes allows for readers to understand an action scene and what or
whom is involved in that scene.
As I mentioned earlier, the most important element I’ve learned for
screenplay writing is visualization. By visualization I mean that whatever
you see in your mind you MUST write in great, but limited detail in the
screenplay. What you see in your mind, the reader must be able to see. Give
your characters distinct details if they have them or show the characteristics
of the room in which the characters are acting. The reason some movies are
so great in displaying detail is because the screenplay writers knew how to
bring the stories to life on paper. For example, with the gunmen at the table,
the differences between them, other than just MAN ON THE LEFT and
MAN ON THE RIGHT. Giving this description makes the characters more
memorable and can allow for more tension between the characters.
Another important convention to keep in mind is that despite the need
for visualization, it’s not a novel; the script must get straight to the point.
Screenplay writers can use detail, but not too much detail:
EXT. ST. ANDREWS HIGH SCHOOL PARKING LOT – DAY – 3
P.M.
It’s a sunny day on the parking lot of St. Andrews
High School. Kids are leaving school. Parents are
picking up kids and the buses are getting ready
to leave the school. We ZOOM IN to KEVIN SMITH.
Kevin has spiked hair and wears brown shorts and
a white t-shirt. His ripped backpack hangs on his
left shoulder and his right sandal has duct tape on
it keeping it together. He walks across the parking
lot to his car when he sees RACHEL SOLER running up
to him.
RACHEL
KEVIN! WAIT!
Kevin smiles.
KEVIN (V.O.)
Why does she keep bothering me
to ask me about things that
don’t matter? What’s she hiding?
Rachel is wearing pink t-shirt and skinny blue jeans.
Her hair is light blonde and is surprisingly wearing
no shoes or socks. She runs up and starts painting
while trying to talk.
I highly recommend
getting a screenplay
software program
like Celtx. It’s a
free program for
screenplay and
theatre writers and
hasn’t disappointed
me yet. Screenplay
dialogue has to have
certain spacing and
formatting. Instead of
doing it yourself and
struggling with the
spacing in Microsoft
Word, let Celtx do it
for you so you can
focus on your story.
RACHEL
Hey . . . (pant) . . . can I have a—
KEVIN
Yes, you can have a ride.
RACHEL
Thanks . . . (pant) . . . and—
KEVIN
Yes, I’ll help you with the math
CUT TO:
liked because I decided that it didn’t matter to the story. I wrote “a school” in
order for the reader to imagine the school they see in their minds. Likewise, I
after school ends. A lot of readers can probably relate to this and will be able
to visualize an image of the scene quickly.
Kevin and Rachel were written about with some detail for a few reasons.
be able to picture them clearly. Second, they’re not the average kids you see in
high school; not the football player, not the prep, not the cheerleader—they’re
just themselves. They have personalities that are unlike those readers might
assume based on the school system they participate in. This presents their
individualism; they do and dress how they please and not according to the
Internet or what the TV says is the hottest fashion. This also indicates that
Personally, I will sometimes include what the characters are wearing in
order to put a good picture in the reader’s mind of what the characters look
like. Sometimes I will use other details, but only if it is necessary for the story.
Unnecessary details are just a waste of space and could be annoying to the
reader. I will give characters certain looks or describe something about the
character in a certain way in order to represent a part of the story that needs
to be told correctly. Clearly, different writers provide different levels of detail
about their characters to achieve different purposes. For example, in some
cases, what the characters wear early in the movie can be representative of
what kind of person they will become further into the movie.
A writer can be as detailed as he or she wants about the characters, but the
characters’ actions need to be brought alive by what they say and how they say
things. Every person reacts differently to certain situations, and it’s important
to show that. Each character needs to have a distinct personality. It’s important
for both the writer and reader to know when an important character has been
brought into the story and also to realize who the character is and what makes
the character the way he or she is. Good writers never create characters that
look, speak, and act the same as everyone else in the story. It’d be way too
and diversity. Using both those tools in a dynamic way, a writer will create
great character development and interaction between characters in the story.
Also central to character development is dialogue. Dialogue is kind of like
acting. Actors have different styles of acting. One well-known style is called
method acting, which Wikipedia
by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and feelings of their characters,
so as to develop lifelike performances.” When I write, I do something similar.
I call it method writing (I know, clever name). When I’m writing characters
and their dialogue, I imagine getting into their minds to see how they would
see the world. This allows me, as a writer, to be able to write each character in
a way so they don’t all feel and sound the same. The characters have stronger
way to write. It’s similar to being in someone else’s shoes and bringing life to
something new in a different way.
Another important element of screenplay writing is learning how
to pace the story. It’s important to learn how to build the story and to let
build characters, scenes, and elements. To research how this is best done,
I recommend seeing movies and reading screenplays. If you want some
good examples of perfectly paced movies, I highly recommend watching
The Shawshank Redemption and Alien; these movies have great pacing, which
that a lot of movies today—at least in my opinion—have stories that could
be great but rush through some parts in order to get to a certain point in the
story, which I think ruins the story in a way.
fact, in some ways it is the formatting that makes a screenplay a screenplay. I
is required—but I’ll mention a few more. For example, EXT. means exterior,
which shows that the following scene will be taking place outside. For an inside
setting, screenplay writers use INT., meaning interior. Also, you’ll notice that
when I wrote Kevin’s dialogue, at one point I wrote (V.O.) by his name; the
(V.O.) stands for voice over. This means that the camera will show that Kevin
is obviously not talking, but the audience will still be able to hear his voice.
Most of the time voice over allows the character to function as a narrator,
or it can express what he or she is thinking in his or her mind. The function
of voice over can vary from writer to writer. It’s important to note that while
every screenplay writer follows certain rules, such as those I’ve described here,
individual writers may do a few things differently to show their style.
As I alluded to earlier, screenplays are mainly read by movie studio
movie industry that determine whether or not the screenplay is good enough
to make into a movie as well as how much money, time, and energy it will
cost the studio to produce. The reason “EXT,” “INT,” “V.O.,” and other
directions like these are used in screenplays is to help the director and the
are all important parts of this process. These days, it’s about how much it’s
going to cost a studio to make the movie and how much more they’re going
Sometimes studios will take control of a script to make more money out
of it. By this I mean the studio will change major aspects of the story to create
what they believe will yield a bigger income if the movie is to be produced
situations, studio executives can forget an important rule: without a great
story, there can’t be a great movie. In translation for the studio executives:
without a good story, there’s no cash.
That’s why it’s important for screenplay writers to practice and perfect
their art, to explain the worlds they imagine with the joy and excitement
that they then bring out onto the pages of their writing. When a writer puts
true emotion and dedication into their writing, he or she can make the story
powerful and challenging. If a story is hard to write, then a screenplay writer
is probably on track; it’s not easy work but that’s the beauty of it.
Works Cited
“The Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb).” N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb.
2013. http://www.imsdb.com/.
“Method Acting.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation,
Jan.-Feb. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Method_acting.
Riley, Christopher. The Hollywood Standard: The Complete and Authoritative Guide
to Script Format and Style. Studio City, CA: M. Wiese Productions, 2005.
Print.
Brandon Stark is currently attending Illinois State University. His major is English
with a minor in creative writing. He’s a film addict and enjoys having long conversations about film. His passion for film and writing stays strong. He continues
to write screenplays and short stories. He hopes to pursue a career in writing.
For now, he’s focusing on school and waiting to see where life takes him. He
personally believes that hard work, real hard work, will take people to the places
they want to go.
Bust a Rhyme: A New Poetics of Food Journaling
Kate Browne
In this article, Browne explores her initial experiences learning to write
food journals for weight loss and discovers a way to repurpose the
genre for disordered eating recovery through subversion. Using poetry and a generous helping of radical politics, Browne then conducts
a writing experiment intended to challenge prescriptive and limiting
genre conventions.
“Mabye we’ll have french toset.”
Figure 1. First foray into food journaling.
In a diary entry written on August 24, 1992, I speculated a breakfast
possibility while staying at my aunt and grandma’s house for the weekend. At
nine years old, diary-keeping was a new writing activity for me. I don’t know
how I learned that a diary is a place to document day-to-day thoughts and
happenings, but I produced entries overrun with descriptions of classmates
I had a crush on, musings about school, and the peskiness of my younger
brother and sister. I wrote about food twice over the span of a year and only
79
Copyright © 2013 by Kate Browne
good times and family togetherness. In these early entries, writing about food
was not substantially different from writing about anything else that happened
in my life. Soon after that diary entry, though, a new kind of food journaling
took over my world—food journaling for weight loss.
How I Learned to Food Journal
Soon after I turned ten, my pediatrician suggested to my parents that it
would be in my best interest to lose weight. My parents, concerned for my
well-being, enrolled me in the Weight Watchers™ program where one of the
primary methods for accountability and nutrition-tracking comes in the form
of food journaling.1 What I did not know then but understand now is that food
journaling for weight loss comprises one part of a complex system of assumptions
and healthy. Although I did not have a name for the process of learning how to
write in this genre at the time, I now understand that I followed a process similar
to learning a new genre using Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT).
I think of CHAT as an analytical tool that is useful when learning how
to write in new genres and that can help writers understand how and why
knowledge of what a diary was and the practice of keeping one, but the
genre of food journaling, though based on daily diary-keeping, has a slightly
different set of practices that can be determined and analyzed using CHAT.
to whom a writer writes. At nine years old, I knew that writing a birthday
card to a friend was different than my spelling homework—which was not
the same as writing in my diary—but I did not know why. After learning
production, distribution, and ecology that are present in writing—an analysis
look differently at how I learned to write a food journal as a child and, in turn,
Weight Watchers™ promotes the use of food journaling for tracking
nutrition and weight loss accountability. First, food is broken down into units
write about French toast, it would have an arbitrary numeric value assigned to
its nutritional content.2 Entries are generally written in list form with columns
or checkboxes. At minimum, the food journal contains information about the
Browne — Bust a Rhyme 81
date of the entry, food eaten, and numerical
value of the writer’s choice. Taken objectively,
food journaling is very similar to collecting
proves or disproves hypotheses. Trends in
dieting for weight loss include public sharing
of part of or the entire food journal. Each
week, I presented a small, trifold pamphlet to
one of the Weight Watchers™ leaders as a
record of my weight loss journey for the week.
If I lost very little or gained, I would also be
expected to present my food journal for the
previous week to the leader so she could review
it to see where I went wrong. Therefore, the
food journal as a genre is not something I
kept for personal data collecting or to record
simple memories, like a diary; rather, it served
as a site of judgment to determine the failure
or success of my weight loss efforts. Based on
Figure 2. Sample of a traditional food journal,
based on Weight Watchers Points™ Program, via
http://healthygirltips.blogspot.com.
by adding additional servings of water or vegetables or by not writing about
a piece of birthday cake I ate that week. The act of keeping the journal (as in
writing daily and recording every meal) also became a socialized experience.
Other members were praised for keeping their journals for an entire week or
through a holiday season no matter what was written, though honesty was
encouraged to maintain accountability. Weight Watchers™ even gave out small
star stickers for encouragement—the equivalent of a writing merit badge.
Later, during my teenage years, I repeated lessons learned from Weight
Watchers™ during doctor appointments. Because my initial attempts at
Figure 3. Author’s attempt at post-Weight Watchers™ food journaling.
weight loss were unsuccessful, and I was still experiencing bullying at school,
my physician again suggested weight loss as the answer. She, too, suggested
food journaling as a tool for weight loss and instructed me to keep one for
her review at my monthly appointment. Again, I wrote the date of my entry,
then a breakdown of breakfast, lunch, and dinner (no snacks allowed). Under
each meal category, I would write the food item along with its serving size
and calorie content. At the bottom of the category, I would total the calories.
reviewed my journal, she noted that pretzels were too high in sodium and
carbohydrates (I hadn’t been tracking those nutrition categories), and she
said I should abstain from eating cookies entirely. The second month and
believed my doctor wanted. Because I was taking the prescription fen-phen
), an anti-obesity drug treatment, I lost weight
no matter what I ate. Keeping the food journal had no effect on my weight
loss, nor did it curb the binge eating habit I had developed in response to
severe emotional trauma.
In the post-adolescent years that followed, no one person monitored
my food journal activities, although I frequently engaged in food journaling
for weight loss. All of my attempts were based on the conventions of the
genre as they had been described to me and as I had been practicing them
for many years. At some point, I began keeping a personal blog. I had seen
other bloggers post their food journals on blogs dedicated to weight loss.
I felt inspired by the weight loss success stories posted by these bloggers
answer to correcting a lifetime of personal weight loss failures. Instead of a
blog or pen and paper journal, I used Excel spreadsheets and apps, such as
MyFitnessPal™ and SparkPeople™, to track the same kinds of information
I had tracked in the past, though I experimented with the data I included
in the journal.3 Sometimes I included a daily weigh-in or a progress chart
or advanced meal planning. Other times, I simply followed the trends and
examples of bloggers I considered successful. Each time I started a new diet,
I started a new journal, vowing that I would be successful this time. When
the diet failed, I closed the blog to start fresh. Food journaling this way—the
way I’d learned and always done—was comfortable. I knew exactly what to
write and how to judge the relative success or failure of my production. If I
did experience a failure, the blame lay with me and my lazy, undisciplined
fails, it’s not the plan’s fault.4 Despite writing in my last blog project about
felt like a failure.
Figure 4. Author’s digital food journal on MyFitnessPal.com™.
How I Un-Learned to Food Journal
great about it. Weight loss no longer seemed to be a requirement for happiness
reveal, I thought: “there’s got to be a better way!” I set out to learn more
about food journaling, weight loss, and if I could keep being happy without
either one. Like many researchers in the 21st century, I turned to Google and
the Internet to begin my search.
Figure 5. Google results, December 2012.
in my search, I still encountered “how-to” guides that explicitly taught how
looking for, I did come across some interesting information about weight loss
and eating disorders. For instance, 81% of ten-year-olds admit to dieting,
binge eating, or a fear of getting fat.5 Also, 91% of women surveyed on a
college campus had attempted to control their weight through dieting, and
22% of those women claimed they dieted “often” or “always.” 95% of all
dieters, regardless of age or gender, will regain their lost weight within 5
years.6 Given these results, I’m clearly not the only ten-year-old, woman, or
college student to learn how to diet. If food journaling is a common tool of
weight loss, it stands to reason that many people are learning the genre using
the techniques and criteria I described.
I had a good idea of how people learn to food journal based on my
experience and reading about similar experiences on other weight loss
blogs. The next thing I wanted to learn is if people use food journaling in
people in the United States and is used to describe a wide range of irregular
also the diagnosis given to me by my therapist. She suggested that I begin
including moods or feelings related to the food items in my food journal to
uncover emotional eating triggers. She also suggested I read The Diet Survivor’s
Handbook.7 In this book, eating disorder recovery counselors Judith Matz
and Ellen Frankel advocate the use of a 1 to 10 scale to indicate fullness, in
addition to recording food eaten. Unfortunately, when I tried this method, I
quickly found myself back in the same pattern: religiously record food intake
for two or three days, stop recording, self-loathe, re-devote, repeat. Back to
the drawing board.
How I Learned to Un-Crazy My Food Journal
At this point in my food journaling life, I started feeling desperate. Would
I ever recover from disordered eating and have a truly healthy relationship
with food? I found the answer in genre subversion—intentionally writing
against genre conventions to make a statement. Using a CHAT analysis of
disrupt or subvert the original intent of a food journal. Given my unsuccessful
completely shatter my ideas of what a food journal is supposed to do. So I
started with what I “know” about a food journal:
rows.
or “McDonald’s chicken nuggets”).
minimum) with totals as well as date and/or time.
before or after consumption.
day.
lead to weight gain.
Subversion has always been attractive to me as a tool of resistance
and social change: shortly before embarking on this experiment, I had
begun to read more about the fat activism movement through blogs and
to intentional weight loss. But even though information about subverting
any information about rebellion through personal writing. I attribute this,
in part, to ideas in fat activism that what or how much someone eats is
strictly private information; therefore, no discussion on conventional food
journaling would be needed. However, I found an article by Lesley Kinzel
helpful when identifying areas of subversion.8 Kinzel acknowledges that
some people would like to keep a food journal for reasons other than dieting,
and suggests that keeping a food journal that is “non crazymaking” can
be a helpful goal for those recovering from disordered eating. My favorite
advice centers on developing a poetic relationship with food journaling as a
way to break free from the shame and self-recrimination of food journaling
for dieting.
I would write poetry because I am not a poet, and writing poetry is not
very comfortable for me. I would be unable to fall back into writing
patterns of the past because my knowledge of how to write poetry is so
limited. Second, I would start a blog for this poetic food journal. It may
seem incongruous to my goal of subversion because I admit to having
kept food journal blogs in the past, but the subversion comes from intent.
Online food journals are intended for accountability and judgment
of food choices. I challenged myself to write poems about “bad” or
“unhealthy” foods because I would normally expect readers to judge this
choice, but it was important to me to experiment with an authenticity
about food and writing that had been missing from my literate life for a
very long time.
Figure 6. kateateasteak.wordpress.com.
I decided to name my blog “kateateasteak” because I can’t resist delicious
word play and also for the upfront assertion that I eat steak. As much as
food is the primary focus of food journaling, not all foods are considered
equal, so I embraced steak as a symbol for intentional indulgence. I wrote
poetry in several styles—from English sonnet to haiku—and on several food
every meal, which turned out to be a mistake because daily writing is an
arbitrary mark of a “good” traditional food journaling and, thus, was not
necessarily a requirement for success in my genre subversion venture. So
eventually I only wrote when the mood struck me. That turned out to be less
often than I expected. I wrote thirteen entries in September 2012 and one in
October 2012.
Figure 7. Sample poem from kateateasteak.wordpress.com.
when I wrote about fruit snacks, nor did I feel shame when I didn’t write. No
matter the content or the frequency of the posts, writing a poetic food journal
functioned only in the ways I determined necessary.
Figure 8. Sample poem from kateateasteak.wordpress.com.
Ultimately, I gave up the poetic food journal project because I had learned
what I needed to from it. I learned that food journaling does not have to be
caught up in weight loss or psychological disorders; instead, understanding
the genre can help the writer customize the journal to his or her nutritional
or emotional needs rather than conforming to a rigid set of diet rules. Now,
freed from the constraints of the genre, success in food journaling no longer
needs to be about “doing it right.” I do continue to write food journals, but
the activity is no longer tied to weight loss, recrimination, or judgment.
I do believe that food journaling with open-ended genre conventions can
be a useful tool in a number of practical applications. Allergy testing and
certain medical conditions rely on tracking food intake to determine symptom
patterns. Athletes also use food journaling to track how their choices affect
performance. An approach that combines the poetic food journal with the
traditional one helps me with disordered eating recovery and nutritional data
collection—the best of both worlds. I believe my subversion was successful not
because every choice I made was a good one, but because through trial and
considering what others told me were the conventions for a good food journal.
The End?
Excising one’s personal demons on the Internet is uncomfortable work at
entries. As a bonus, I’ve included some additional entries on my history with
but that I hope will be useful to anyone else struggling with similar issues. I
know you’re out there, and now you know I’m out there, too. May you always
have French toast if you want it and forever question the “right” way to write.
Endnotes
1. WEIGHT WATCHERS is the trade name and the registered trademark
and service mark of Weight Watchers International.
2. In the Weight Watchers™ plan, the value comes in the form of Points™
or relative units based on a patented and trademarked algorithm, but the
more common unit for weight loss is the calorie. Depending on nutritional
3. MyFitnessPal.com and the MyFitnessPal logo (collectively, the
“MyFitnessPal Marks”) are trademarks or registered trademarks of
registered trademark of SparkPeople, Inc. (http://www.sparkpeople.com).
4. Similar to the logic of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”
5. Sacker, Ira M., and Marc A. Zimmer. Dying to be Thin: Understanding and
Defeating Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia—A Practical, Lifesaving Guide. New
York: Grand Central Publishing, 1987.
6. National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, Inc.
(ANAD). “Eating Disorder Statistics.” N.d. 16 Feb. 2013. http://www.anad.
org/get-information/about-eating-disorders/eating-disorders-statistics/.
7. Frankel, Ellen, and Judith Matz. The Diet Survivor’s Handbook: 60 Lessons in
Eating, Acceptance, and Self-Care. Chicago: Sourcebooks, 2006.
8. Kinzel, Lesley. “How To: Keep a Non-Crazymaking Food Journal.”
XOJane.com. 24 Jul. 2012. http://www.xojane.com/healthy/how-keepnon-crazymaking-food-journal.
Kate Browne is a PhD student specializing in American women’s life writing because her mother said she’d be a writer someday even though she played a nurse
in the preschool graduation pageant. She’s also the type of person who would
follow the signs to “See the Egress” just to be sure she didn’t miss anything.
Zombie Apocalypse: A Genre Studies Guide to Survival
Francesco Levato
After being confronted with both the possibility of an impending zombie
apocalypse and the realization of his lack of knowledge of zombie culture, Levato turns to genre theory in an attempt to unpack the zombie, as
a genre, with the hope of understanding the complexities of this cultural
object in order to survive the coming of the zombie hordes.
I’m not a fan of zombies. I never watch
zombie movies. I don’t watch zombie TV
shows. I’ve never read Pride and Prejudice and
Zombies. From what I can tell, zombies are
rude, always trying to eat your brains or tear
out your entrails without so much as buying
all, and I imagine they’re fairly awkward at
social gatherings (see above commentary on
smell and rudeness). Aside from my opinions
on their lack of social skills and poor hygiene,
I knew little to nothing about them and was
quite content in that ignorance. I mean,
really, what more does one need to know?
It’s not like I have zombie neighbors. My dog
doesn’t come bounding in from the backyard
with Bob’s rotting foot dangling from his
mouth—Bob being my zombie neighbor;
91
Figure 1. Aaargh! the zombie.1
Copyright © 2013 by Francesco Levato
that is, if I had a zombie neighbor, he would probably be named Bob because
that would be my luck: living next to Bob the zombie, not Gurlck! the zombie
or Aaargh! the zombie or any other name you might imagine gurgling out
of a jawless zombie neck. My neighbor would be Bob, and he would have
a jaw, and he would chatter incessantly about things like petroleum free lip
balm (because unfortunately, unlike other zombies, he would have lips, and
petroleum-based products make chapping worse, and did you know that
some manufacturers put ground glass in their lip balms so your lips never
heal, and, and . . .). So, the extent of what I would need to know about him
or other zombies like him would be how to shut him, or them, the fuck up.
Right? Not exactly.
Figure 2. Original CDC Facebook post.2
My somewhat blissful state of ignorance was completely blown apart
when one of my friends, we’ll call him “Not Bob,” posted on Facebook that
“the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns public to prepare for
a zombie apocalypse.”3 Great. Prepare? Now what? I really can’t deal with a
real-life, or real-dead, Bob right now: “chatter chatter, yap yap . . . my foot . .
. your dog . . . my lips are dry, maybe I should put on more lip balm, do you
think I should, or maybe I should just switch brands, this one isn’t really doing
it for me . . . .” Ok, breathe. How hard can it be? The CDC has to have a
guide on their website. After all, they issued the warning; all I should need to
do is follow their instructions. The post on their blog opens with:
There are all kinds of emergencies out there that we can prepare
for. Take a zombie apocalypse for example. That’s right, I said
z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e. You may laugh now, but when it
happens you’ll be happy you read this, and hey, maybe you’ll even
learn a thing or two about how to prepare for a real emergency.4
Levato — Zombie Apocalypse 93
I’m sorry, laughing? More like hyperventilating. But it’ll be ok, right?
They’ve laid everything out, a one-stop zombie apocalypse survival shop—just
one click from Facebook, right to the CDC website, didn’t even have to use
Google. So what do we have, hmm . . . caused by everything from infectious
diseases to radiation to just being plain evil and/or having a real bad attitude .
. . Ok, here we go: “. . . a zombie apocalypse could happen. In such a scenario
zombies would take over entire countries, roaming city streets eating anything
living that got in their way.”5 Well yeah, isn’t that why you scared the hell out of
me with: “That’s right, I said z-o-m-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e”? It’s bad enough–
the whole apocalypse thing–but dragging the word out like that, “a-p-o-c-a-l-y-
was forced to write, “I’m the last of the crew, the beast is upon me, I can feel
his breath on . . . aaaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhh! [sic],” and that is so not helpful. I
can almost hear Bob rattling the back door—I’m the last of my . . . Ok, get it
together. There’s gotta be a list or something. I mean it is a government website,
and aren’t government employees all “listy,” all white-collared, and by-the-book,
and everything looks to be in order here, sir, and—ok, ok, here’s the CDC’s
6
:
(1 gallon per person per day)
(stock up on non-perishable
items that you eat regularly)
(this includes
prescription and non-prescription
meds)
(utility knife,
duct tape, battery powered radio,
etc.)
Figure 3. CDC emergency kit.7
(household bleach, soap, towels, etc.)
(a change of clothes for each family
member and blankets)
(copies of your driver’s license, passport,
(although you’re a goner if a zombie bites you,
you can use these supplies to treat basic cuts and lacerations that you
might get during a tornado or hurricane)
Wait, that’s it—water, medications, documents?! What the hell am
I gonna do when Bob bursts through the back door looking for his foot?
Chuck a water bottle at him, show him my ID so he knows just who he’s
eating, whip out my bottle of prescription tranquilizers and try to stall him?
“Um, hi, can you read the dosage for me, the print’s so small, I know, don’t
you hate that? Yeah, I just need to like—know how much to take—to like—
make the fucking nightmare that’s you go away.” I can just see Bob taking the
bottle and shoving it down his rotting zombie throat right before burying his
few remaining teeth into my forehead. And I bet it wouldn’t even faze him,
enough tranqs to drop a horse . . . or would it? Are zombies even affected by
meds? Where’s that information on the website? It’s all, “stock up on water,
pick a place to regroup, plan your evacuation route, blah, blah, blah.” Not
one mention of what to do if, before you had a chance to plan for said “z-om-b-i-e a-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e,” Bob was able to get his rather unpleasant mouth
real information, like now. I need to know what the hell I’m dealing with here.
Looks like I’ll have to use Google after all.
Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky.” Really, “I’m Feeling Lucky”? I’m trying to
particularly lucky. Fine, “Google Search” button it is.
Figure 4. Screenshot of Google search for “zombie apocalypse.”8
9
um, not really, haven’t you heard? “How Everything Goes to Hell During a
Zombie Apocalypse,”10 no shit. “Zombie Apocalypse Store | Do you have
what it takes to survive?”11 No! And I can’t get to Las Vegas for your fourhour introductory “Urban Zombie Knife Defense” seminar either. I am
so screwed. I need to think. Ok, what’s the worst-case scenario? No, that’s
no good. I know that answer already—Bob bites me, I turn all zombie, we
spend the rest of eternity together trading lip balm secrets (God that sounds
horrible). I need to know how to deal with this shit, like for real. And, judging
by the apocalyptic volume of web pages devoted to everything from surviving
zombies to merchandizing them, I don’t have the time to grow a beard,
implications of strategies versus tactics in the kicking of zombie ass. I need
to get my non-zombie ass in gear. I need a battle plan, and fast. I’ll also
need a strategic command center from which to plot the eradication of the
zombie hordes: a globally networked bunker with the highest-tech research
basement—bunker, check. Wireless internet—global network, check. I have
tech research tools, check. And I have enough bottled water and Pop-Tarts
Pop-Tarts, which should actually be about a day because I only have one box
left (chocolate, in case you’re wondering)—
provisions stockpile, check. All right, time to
essential questions:
apocalypse?
And, “Oh crap, it’s here, that didn’t
work, how the fuck do I kill ’em?”
What is a Zombie Anyway?
Do I really care exactly what a zombie is?
I just want to be able to detect and eradicate!
A quick online search for zombie detection
rates are growing exponentially. How can
you be sure who’s a zombie before they try
to bite?”12 The answer: the Zombie Survival
Figure 5. Zombie Survival Guide Scanner image of
me as a zombie.15
Guide Scanner app for iPhone.13 Sweet. Research complete: just have my
iPhone tell me who’s a zombie, then stay the hell away from them. Ok, simple
interface, live photo and one big scan button. Scan myself to see how it works:
“Zombie Survival Guide Scanner Diagnosis: 16% Infected. Initial signs of
infection present. Consult a medical professional immediately and present
this diagnosis image.”14 How the hell am I already infected? And what’s with
my face?! I really need to exfoliate. And my lips . . . crap, I could use some lip
balm. Did I look like this when I woke up? This can’t be right. Fine. (Emotive
sigh goes here.) Back to research.
The scanner app came from Max Brooks’ website, author of The Zombie
Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead.16 Maybe I can get the
eBook and see if it doesn’t suck as much as the app. Ok, here’s something, a
ZOM-BIE: n. also ZOM-BIES pl. 1. An animated corpse that
3. A Voodoo snake god. 4. One who moves or acts in a daze ‘like a
zombie.’ [a word of West African origin]17
walking dead are neither a work of ‘black magic’ nor any other supernatural
force. Their origin stems from a virus known as Solanum.”18 What the hell is
“Solanum”? Ok, back to Google. First result, from Wikipedia, “Solanum, the
nightshades, horsenettles and relatives, are a large and diverse genus of annual
and perennial plants.”19 That can’t be it. Second result, again from Wikipedia,
a link to the entry on Brooks’ The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the
Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead, zombies are
born of “radioactive contamination from a space probe returning from Venus
that exploded in the Earth’s atmosphere.”20 In The Evil Dead, the “Deadites”
are undead created by the Necronomicon, an ancient book written by the
“Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred from the horror stories of H. P. Lovecraft.21
And in Zombieland, a mutated strain of mad cow disease, delivered by way of
a contaminated burger, is the culprit.22 Ok, so zombie origins are all over the
place, but at least they, zombies, all seem to be some form of “animated corpse
23
Ok, on to the next question.
How Do I Survive the Coming Apocalypse?
A Google search of “surviving zombie apocalypse” yields advice from
AliceAttack, a registered user of the Zombie Survival and Defense Wiki.24
She has a plan that includes “bugging in,” which involves staying in the house
fencing, razor wire, boards, metal plates, and a stack of red bricks25—not
quite sure what the bricks are for but they could prove useful should Bob come
poking around all, “Hi neighbor,” and, “Ooh, are you planning a gazebo,”
Columbus, from the movie Zombieland, instead stayed mobile and adhered to
his list of rules for surviving in a zombie-infested world, including: “Cardio”
and “Limbering up” (as he was always running his ass off); “Beware of
bathrooms” (solid advice, even without the threat of zombie hordes); “Avoid
strip clubs”; “Don’t be a hero”; and “Get a kick-ass partner” (seems sensible)
as well as a “Cast iron skillet” and “Bowling ball” (I’m still working out the
implications of these).26 Brooks suggests that “[h]ooking on scuba gear and
blindly diving into zombie-infested water is a wonderful way to mix the two
childhood terrors of being eaten and drowning.”27 Hmm, I hadn’t thought of
that. No time to piss about though, last question needs answering.
Oh Crap, It’s Here, That Didn’t Work, How the Fuck Do I Kill ’Em?
Figure 6. Zombie horde.28
You might think, machine-gun! Go all Scarface on ‘em: “You wanna
fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little
friend!”29
every zombie in earshot know where their next meal was. Characters in the
The Walking Dead
from a baseball bat to a screwdriver to a Samurai sword.30 In the interactive
eBook for iPhone version of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (yes, I know, I
know . . .), “Mr. Bennet guides his daughters in martial arts and weapons
female characters weigh the pros and cons of carrying a musket as it
provides safety but is considered “unladylike.”31 And it would appear that
Abraham Lincoln favored a scythe, not some little hand-held one either,
we’re talking the big honkin’ Grim Reaper kind, at least according to the
Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies.32 Despite the range of preferred weapons,
one thing seems certain: whether you shoot them with a handgun, machinegun, compound-bow, or crossbow; bludgeon them with a baseball bat,
crowbar, or sledgehammer; run over them with a bulldozer, pick-up truck,
or electric scooter; poke them through the eye socket with a screwdriver,
arrow, pocket knife, or knitting needle; decapitate or otherwise dismember
them with a Samurai sword, chainsaw, machete, wood-chopping axe, or big
honkin’ Abe Lincoln scythe, zombie heads must be destroyed. Otherwise
they’ll keep hobbling, crawling, or slithering after you, dragging whatever
sloppy, gooey, dripping mess remains of them, for fucking ever, and . . . Oh
crap. Something rattling. The back door . . .
Oh, uh, hi, Bob. Good, good, how are you? No, no I haven’t seen it. Did
you check the back yard? Maybe dig around a little? Me? Ha, no, no, haven’t
been digging myself, no. This, on my shirt? No, not dirt, um, just um, PopTart crumbs. Whatcha been up to? Oh, that’s nice, a gazebo huh? Me? Um,
just hanging out online, doing some research, you know . . . You’d be amazed
at what people are doing these days with razor wire and red bricks.
Please note: No zombies were harmed in the writing of this article. All
persons, living or undead, is purely coincidental. The author does not advocate
violence or discrimination against any members of the undead based on
expiration date; odor or discoloration; remaining number, functionality, or
awkward angle of limbs; or possession, or lack, of jaw (though the latter does
make them, thankfully, much less chatty).
Endnotes
1. Silver, Maggie, writer. Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic. Penciled and
inked by Bob Hobbs. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human
2. Facebook. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, 18 May 2011. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.
3. Bob, Not (Not Bob). “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
warns public to prepare for a zombie apocalypse.” Facebook. 18 May
2011. Web.
4. Khan, Ali. Public Health Matters Blog. U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 May
2011. Web. 3 Sept. 2012.
5. Khan, Public Health Matters Blog.
6. Khan, Public Health Matters Blog.
7. Silver, Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic.
8. Google. Google, n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 3 Sept.
2012.
10. “The Oatmeal.” How Everything Goes to Hell During a Zombie
Apocalypse. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Sept. 2012.
11. “Zombie Apocalypse Store.” Zombie Apocalypse Store. N.p., n.d. Web.
3 Sept. 2012.
12. “Zombie Survival Guide Scanner.” iTunes. Apple, n.d. Web. 8 Oct. 2012.
13. “Zombie Survival Guide Scanner.” iTunes.
14. Zombie Survival Guide Scanner. Computer software. Vers. 1.2.1. Random
House Publishing Inc., n.d. Web. 8 Oct. 2012.
15. Zombie Survival Guide Scanner. Computer software.
16. Brooks, Max. The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living
Dead. New York: Three Rivers, 2003. Ebook Reader.
17. Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, 1.
19. “Solanum.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 3 Sept. 2012.
20. “Night of the Living Dead.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web.
3 Sept. 2012.
21. The Evil Dead. Dir. Sam Raimi. Perf. Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss
and Richard DeManincor. Renaissance Pictures, 1981.
22. Zombieland. Dir. Ruben Fleischer. By Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. Perf.
Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Woody Harrelson. Columbia Pictures,
2009.
24. AliceAttack. “AliceAttack’s Survival Plan.” Zombie Survival & Defense Wiki.
25. AliceAttack, Zombie Survival & Defense Wiki.
26. Zombieland. Dir. Ruben Fleischer.
27. Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead,
145.
28. Silver, Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic.
29. Scarface. Dir. Brian De Palma. By Oliver Stone. Perf. Al Pacino, Michelle
Pfeiffer and Steven Bauer. Universal Pictures, 1983.
30. Darabont, Frank. The Walking Dead. American Movie Classics (AMC).
N.d. Television.
31. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Interactive eBook. Computer software.
Vers. 1.0.1. PadWorx Digital Media Inc., n.d. Web. 8 Oct. 2012.
32. Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies. Dir. Richard Schenkman. By Karl T. Hirsch
and J. Lauren Proctor. Perf. Bill Oberst Jr., Kent Igleheart, Rhianna Van
Helton. The Asylum, 2012. Film.
Francesco Levato is a poet, translator, and filmmaker. Recent books include Endless, Beautiful, Exact; Elegy for Dead Languages; War Rug; and Creaturing (as
translator). His poetry films have been performed with various composers, including Philip Glass. He founded the Chicago School of Poetics, holds an MFA in
Poetry, and is working on his PhD in English Studies. www.francescolevato.com.
Pricked:
Extreme Embroidery, or the Sampler’s Extraordinary Journey across Cultures
Adriana Gradea
American visual artist Andrea Dezső appropriated the genre of the Transylvanian sampler, modified it, and recontextualized it to allow for its
visibility in the high-culture milieu of the North American art world.
Dezső’s samplers take age-old beliefs and superstitions from the domestic sphere of rural Eastern Europe into the public space and the digital
techno-sphere. Through her transformation of the sampler genre, Dezső
emphasizes the genre’s hybridity; by complicating fonts, chromatic palettes, and messages of a woman’s place in the private sphere, the artist
is able to assert the woman’s power to question the world’s belief systems that govern her everyday actions. Dezső, a woman herself, offers
the genre of the sampler a trajectory and a journey through geographical
and social spaces.
A Traditional Genre
In the region of Transylvania, Romania, the embroidered sampler is a
low-culture type of artifact used as a kitchen wall-art decoration by most ethnic
groups (Romanian, Hungarian, German, Slovak, Serbian, etc.). But this art
form can also be found elsewhere in Romania, and probably all over the
world, for that matter, in various expressions. The traditional Transylvanian
artifact uses red or blue color thread on a white background. Visually, the
sampler combines image and text, and its message pertains mostly to family
and domestic life. A contemporary example of the embroidery sampler is
following text in Romanian cursive writing: “The Blessing of the Home:
Where there’s faith, there’s love, where there’s love, there’s peace, where
there’s peace, there’s blessing” (my translation).
103
Copyright © 2013 by Adriana Gradea
The traditional sampler genre addresses
the small circle of family and friends that
happen to visit the home, or what some
call the “domestic sphere.” These samplers
know their place as an age-old medium; their
ambition is not to cross into high culture or to
offer social critique, despite the texts’ attempts
to appear as wise, philosophical catchphrases. When the traditional Transylvanian
sampler talks to these familiar visitors, the
message it sends is one of agreement and
Figure 1. Contemporary Transylvanian sampler (in
positivity. Referring to the home and family,
Romanian).1
it reinforces established gender roles expected
by traditional society and contributes to the domestic harmony of the house in
which the woman knows her expected role. The traditional genre’s audience
is not one to be challenged with feminist words meant to disturb the malefemale relationship. The sampler acts as a glue for these relationships while
these aspects, the sampler is designed to reinforce the societal bond between
community members.
An Artist’s Remix
when we both attended the Visual Arts High School in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
She went to study visual arts in Budapest, Hungary, after graduating from
high school, and like me, followed her destiny to America in the late 1990s.
After bumping into each other on the street in New York one fall evening in
1997, I learned that she had become an accomplished visual artist, working
as an art professor in New York, lecturing in the U.S. and abroad, and holding
art shows all over the world.
and found
out about a collection of embroideries that she had created. The collection
of 48 artifacts was exhibited in the “Pricked: Extreme Embroidery” art
show at the New York Museum of Arts and Design in 2007-2008. Several
of the pieces from the exhibit are featured on her website, including some
animated embroidery work. Prestigious publications like The Wall Street
Journal, The Village Voice, and The New York Times included articles about
the exhibition. For instance, The New York Times review article “Needling
2
Gradea — Pricked 105
More Than the Feminist Consciousness”3 written by Karen Rosenberg and
Some of the most interesting works reinvigorate the tradition of
the sampler, a piece of embroidery that offers a religious or moral
48 cotton squares with bits of Transylvanian folk wisdom passed
down from her mother. One square suggests, “You can get hepatitis
from a handshake,” while another claims, “Men will like me more
if I pretend to be less smart.” Each warning or cautionary tale is
accompanied by a small, equally humorous illustration.4
sampler genre I discussed above.
articles commenting on her work, I was intrigued. I have to admit that, at the
because the genre belongs to the countryside subculture, and I’d been born
and raised in the city, and secondly, because European education still shows
more interest in “high culture” than “low” or pop culture, even more so than
in places such as the United States. In many parts of the world, including
Romania, the city and the village differ radically in their cultures, the village
being more traditional than the modernist
city. The sampler genre was nowhere near my
interests while I lived in Romania, but when
them on her website, I realized that these
artifacts were way more than needlework.
Having studied art myself, I’d always
been aware of how artists often take existing
genres and adapt them to new forms, looking
for new ways to address issues of the day or
cultural and philosophical questions. In a
genre and transforms it according to her
of how a genre can be repurposed and
resituated to speak to a different audience in
new contexts.
Figure 2. An embroidery about obsolete medical
knowledge.5
sampler by modifying it, and her artistic
interpretation of the sampler is meant to
resituate it in a new context. Some of her
changes at the level of the form consist in
aesthetic changes, such as dropping the
border, the monochromatic use of red or
blue, and the exclusive use of cursive writing.
She also adds more colors, capital letters,
and a more militant, daring design, as can
be seen in Figures 2, 3, and 4. In addition to
the textual component in a more salient way.
All of her embroideries have at the top the
phrase “My mother claimed that,” followed
Figure 3. An embroidery about an obsolete vision on
the justice system.6
taking the aesthetic form and the semantic
content of the original artifact to new realms
of interpretation, she manages to resituate
the artifact into the new context of the “high
art” of New York, where the art exhibition
took place. Moreover, since she has pictures
of the artifacts on her personal website, this
artwork exists in the digital sphere, therefore
addressing a digital audience in addition to
the museum-going crowd.
Figure 4. An embroidery about phrenology7, which is “the
study of the conformation of the skull based on the belief
that it is indicative of mental faculties and character [. . .]
Though popular well into the 20th century, phrenology has
been wholly discredited.”8
Of course, these messages disturbed
saying that our
little culture in Transylvania was too
traditional, weird, backward, outdated,
superstitious, or stupid? Was this a way to
criticize that particular culture, cultural
artifact, or society? Were these artifacts
engaging in any serious discussion at
all, or was this supposed to be seen as a
mere whimsical exercise? Was my friend
saying that a mother could actually say
all those things? By the way, was she
talking about her actual mother? At this
’s
website, I was so shocked that I thought
I would close down the browser and just forget about it. But, of course, a few
days later, I couldn’t help but take another look.
Looking closer and sifting through her artwork to better understand
what exactly it was saying, I discovered that, at a more profound level, while
funny and slightly absurd, these messages essentially read as a critique of
humanity’s organization of knowledge and belief systems. Societies, indeed
humanity in general, organize knowledge and belief systems in a certain
relative way that changes with time and from generation to generation. For
example, medieval medical practices were considered obsolete by the 19th
century in the same way that Victorian Puritanism is seen differently in the
21st century. Science, medicine, religion, philosophy, and society organization
change with time, and, thus, so does our understanding and organization of
knowledge. Our knowledge of the world changes with time in a vertical way:
the mother belongs to an older generation, as do historical periods, and so
knowledge changes vertically, with time. Likewise, knowledge also changes
spatially, with one’s movement around the world: what holds true today for a
culture in one part of the world may be considered entirely wrong in another.
to that of the United States—a horizontal move through geographical space.
In a different interpretation, the mother is the representative of the older
generation, entrusted with the education of the young and with the transmittal
of values about life and society to the next generation. The mother-daughter
dialog is a conversation between two women, in which the mother teaches
lessons, hence the collection’s title: “Lessons from My Mother.”
geographical space, we can see how “Mother’s” interpretations of the world
are obsolete. For instance, “My Mother claimed that our destinies are written
in our palms”9 reminds us that various cultures might have believed this
literally at some point in history, or that certain subcultures may still believe it
today. Also consider this example: “My Mother claimed that the house is cold
in winter because of a lack of oxygen inside. Open the windows—the fresh
oxygen will warm up the house fast.”10 This saying may be interpreted as a
way to explain the world when chemistry and physics are not fully understood
discoveries are not advanced enough for humanity to understand them.
Similarly, “My Mother claimed that she who lies will also cheat, she who
cheats will also steal, she who steals will also kill”11 speaks to the way humanity
may have once organized the justice system, or to the way certain cultures do
it today. And lastly, “My Mother claimed that if you go outside with wet hair
you will get meningitis and die”12 reads as a superstition or misinterpretation
of the world, or even as an obsolete view of medical issues. Most of these
statements also function as a degree of separation from conventional wisdom.
the original genre’s naive text in her recreation of the artifact. She starts with a
seemingly powerless genre, which had small circulation, being restricted to one’s
more powerful by virtue of its transformation. When she starts from original
messages like, “I’m a good cook and a great homemaker” in order to arrive at
“She who lies will also cheat, she who cheats will also steal, she who steals will
also kill,”13 or, “My Mother claimed that men will like me more if I pretend to
be less smart,”14 the subject matter has gained sophistication and strength. The
new text talks about humanity and its values or about the way we understand
justice or gender roles in society. In particular, the text critiques a patriarchal
culture in which gender roles are prescribed. Generally, the textual message
becomes deeper and more intricate, therefore speaking to a different audience.
Changes in Trajectory and Audience
To explore these changes in audience, let us consider the embroidery in
Figure 5, which reads, “My Mother claimed that you don’t know what kind
of man you married until after you married him and by then it’s too late.”15
Not only is this text powerful because it talks about the condition of women
living in a society in which it may be “too late” if she is in a bad marriage,
but it is also strong because it contrasts cynicism and disillusionment with
the idyllic graphic representation. The three-tier cake is set in predominantly
white and some pastel colors, denoting
serenity, and if one were to ignore the
text, the image by itself would contain
no controversy or negative connotation.
Its denotation (i.e., face-value meaning),
therefore, is in opposition to its connotation
(i.e., social, historical, and cultural meaning)
of the hybridized text/image.16 Thus, the
two extreme representations emphasize each
other by means of a text divorced from the
wall-art decorative artifact and applies her
its original context, brings it into New York’s
Figure 5. An embroidery about marriage.17
it. The artifacts created in this style and
exhibited in the “Pricked: Extreme Embroidery” art show are reinvented
folklore samplers whose messages have by now abandoned their domestic
connotations and are ready to take on the world by challenging already
established notions.
So, what happens to this new genre when it gets such exposure? The
artist knows that the message has to be resituated from being simple, humble,
and speaking to the womanly skills of the matriarch; addressing the American
audience, particularly the high-art society of New York, the artistic message
has to leave behind the simple, immediate parochial circle in order to expand
speak to just a small group of people made up of family and friends; the
audience enlarges to incorporate the viewers of the exhibition in New York:
young, aspiring, or established artists, students in various disciplines, and
potentially people of all ages and professions who may take an interest in
art and culture in general. Furthermore, when the audience changes, the
trajectory of the genre changes. Once uprooted from its original context of
changes in voice and attitude. Its message does not align along lines of
harmony and agreement, but instead challenges and provokes its viewers,
addressing deeper cultural values and speaking in a “new language.”
that
she sees her artistic sampler creations as “simply good stories.” I think the
artwork she creates poses serious philosophical questions and challenges
our understanding of the world. I also think that the transformation of the
sampler genre interestingly replicates the artist’s journey from her original
culture to that of the United States. In this repurposing of the original genre,
the artist prepares it for different audiences, and most remarkably, sends it
on a trajectory that leaves behind the domestic sphere. The newly remixed
genre is ready to occupy a place in the public sphere. And it all started with
the genre of a humble, unassuming cultural artifact that has undertaken an
extraordinary journey in being transformed to address the world.
18
Endnotes
1. Traditional Romanesc. Available at http://www.traditionalromanesc.
ro/anunt/regiune_transilvania/mestesuguri/tesaturi/tesaturisasestiunguresti-fete-de-masa-peretare-cu-scrisuri-huse-pentru-biblie-sallai-maria_588.html. Last accessed February 6, 2013.
Last accessed February 6, 2013.
3. Rosenberg, Karen. “Needling More Than the Feminist Consciousness.”
December 28, 2007. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/
October 20, 2012.
4. Rosenberg, Karen. “Needling More Than the Feminist Consciousness.”
5.
7.
8. “Phrenology.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online. Available at http://
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phrenology. Last accessed
February 6, 2013.
9.
10.
12.
14.
15.
16. For more on denotation and connotation, see: Barthes, Roland. Image Music - Text. New York: Hill and Wang, 1978.
17.
18. “The Curious Genius of High Art Embroidery.” NPR Transcript.
March 31, 2008. Available at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=89232061. Last accessed October 20, 2008.
Adriana Gradea was born in the region of Transylvania in
Romania. Having lived, however, in Romania, Italy, and in
American cities like New York, Seattle, and Philadelphia,
she considers herself a citizen of the world, the Milky
Way Galaxy, and well, the Universe.
Writing Pains: Exploring the Writing Activity of a “Slacker”
Cayla Eagon
Eagon utilizes her personal struggle writing a film analysis to illustrate
the ups and downs of her writing process and her negative feelings
towards the act. By describing the literate activities she practices and
the frustration she encounters as a result, Eagon debunks the rather romanticized idea that writing is inspired and instead reveals it to be a slow
and stressful experience. She also admits that the writing experience is
different for every writer and every genre. Consequently, she realizes in
the end that though the process may never be easy, she can begin to
approach writing with less anxiety by trying out various writing habits to
find what suits her individual needs best.
I tried to avoid this! I tried to start early, be proactive. How did I wind up in this
situation once again? Writing at the last minute is so stressful, and I feel like I’ve
been working on this paper all weekend long—why is it still not finished?! I’m
so tired . . . I just want to go to bed. My writing is probably suffering as a result
of my sleep deprivation. Not to mention the stress. Maybe I could lie down for a
20-minute nap? No, I should probably just make another pot of coffee.
This situation is one of the reasons why I hate writing papers. For me,
they inevitably end up in long, stressful nights consisting of too much caffeine
my face is not painfully balanced on my nose or sharp cheekbones. These
all-nighters wind up occurring frequently before my deadlines because I’m
a procrastinator—although some prefer the term “slacker” and others have
even ventured “perfectionist.” Although these terms have very different
for mastery in writing becomes so stressful it often leads to putting work off
until later. Despite the mostly negative associations friends and colleagues
have given to my writing identity, these bad habits aren’t quite steeped in
the apathetic torpor or laziness that people suspect. I think Emily Dickenson
113
Copyright © 2013 by Cayla Eagon
which I otherwise refer to as my personal “writing process.”
For me, my writing process begins as soon as I receive a writing task,
whether it is an email that requires response or an assigned essay. Even if all
I do is mark the email as unread or stuff the assignment sheet into the back
of my notebook and forget about the task until confronted with it again, I still
consider myself to be taking part in the writing process. Once I’m given that
writing task, I’ve crossed the line between someone who didn’t have writing
audience. If I choose to, I can spend the majority of my writing process
pretending I’m the former person and that this task doesn’t exist; but in the
back of my mind I know it’s there, and I’m making a conscious choice about
composition scholars David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen claim that “The
draft” (14). Writing process can also be described as a literate activity system
in which all of the numerous and complex components of the process—from
where writing happens to when it happens to how it happens—make up the
activity of writing. Joyce Walker explains this idea in much more detail in her
article “Just CHATting” (74-77), where she describes literate activity from
multiple different perspectives that “can be used to help researchers [as well
as writers at all levels] investigate the complicated factors that impact what/
how/when/why we write” (74).
There are many different genres of writing and probably just as many
ways to participate in the activity of writing, but there’s not just one “right”
way. For instance, some writers approach Facebook status updates as something
they can write quickly on their phone while on the go, while others linger over
these updates, constructing creative expressions or lengthy rants. Similarly,
other writers, when given a research paper, immediately begin brainstorming,
researching, drafting, revising, etc. I envy these writers and their ability to sit
down and get work done—yet, I don’t pretend to assume that these activities
qualify such authors as better writers or even good writers. In fact, I’ve
encountered many writers who employ such practices because they struggle
with writing, and drafting early means having time for necessary revisions
and edits. Therefore, I do not wish to be these writers as much as I wish I had
their diligence. Instead, my particular method of writing involves being in a
my writing process could perhaps be a model in the “learn from my mistakes”
ideas of writing as a sort of magical event inspired by the muses. I think
Eagon — Writing Pains 115
my activities also reveal the reality of writing as hard work that involves not
only putting words on a page, but thinking critically, researching, scheduling,
effort to draft. Thus the act of writing for me is an intricate and complex
system that requires much more activity than simply typing words onto a
computer screen; and as I mentioned, this activity begins when I receive a
writing task.
The Analysis Writing Assignment
program, I received this assignment: write a four- to six-page academic
essay for which you choose an object to analyze. The object can be a place,
relationship, experience, institution, or anything literary, popular, cultural,
the object. Furthermore, whatever object is selected for this paper will also be
the topic of three more four- to six-page papers. The paper should be written
in MLA format and double-spaced; it’s due in three weeks. My reaction?
This is an awesome assignment! I’m not quite sure in what way this paper
will work with the subsequent papers for this class, but I’m excited about it
nonetheless because of the complete freedom it gives me. I’ve wanted the
chance to focus on my own research interests and write something that I could
potentially get published; now I have the opportunity. Plus, since the topic is
entirely of my own choosing, my interest in this assignment should make it easy
to write.
I put the assignment sheet on the dry erase board hanging up in my
make my writing process productive from the beginning so that the writing
experience doesn’t become stressful and neurosis inducing in the end. My
Brainstorming for Topic Ideas
In their book Tutoring Writing: A Practical Guide for Conferences, Donald A.
a topic including free writing, rapid sketching, conversation, free talking,
alertness, and using writing territories, which consists of generating a list of
a particularly helpful activity, even if it’s only a conversation with myself—
although, I do generally rely on friends to help me with this part. I actually
enjoy thinking about possible topics; therefore, brainstorming can often take
up a large period of my process, which ultimately produces time constraints
for my several remaining writing activities. For this paper, brainstorming
lasted two weeks. This is the condensed version of that activity:
Since I have absolute freedom and I have to write four papers on this topic, I
should probably pick something I like. I could write about the 2011 Jane Eyre
movie! After all, why are there about two-dozen Jane Eyre movies anyway? But
then again, I’ve never written about movies . . . Maybe I should pick something
I know? What do I know? I know literature; I should probably write about
literature. I’ve wanted to read Nabokov’s Lolita for over a year now; I could use
that. But I don’t know anything about Russian literature. Plus, there is the issue
of working with a translation. Wait . . . Lolita wasn’t translated; it was written in
English. But still, I better stick with British literature. I could write about Harry
Potter! It would finally give me a chance to finish the series. But then I would
have to work with all seven books since it’s a series. That’s a lot to take on,
and it adds more reading to my workload. Maybe I should pick something I’ve
already read. I could use Wilkie Collins’s Armadale since I wrote my Honors
thesis on it—I have so much more to say about that book. And I’ve also read
quite a lot of secondary criticism on that novel. But would that be cheating? I’d
still be writing from scratch, and I’d be taking up new ideas. I don’t think it’s
cheating. I should definitely use Armadale.
assignment to be not only an opportunity for us to explore a topic we’re
interested in, but he’s encouraging us to try experimenting a little. So after all
of Jane Eyre.
Reviewing the Topic
If I had chosen a novel for my object, I would have to read it and
fortunately I had already read Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Since I chose a movie, I
watched it while sitting on my comfy couch and taking detailed notes.
Opening scene: Adult Jane leaving Thornfield in tears; wobbly, frantic camera
angles; Jane walking through moors—wide angles; Jane walking through rain—
sees the Rivers’ house. St. John finds Jane on doorstep—in book, Jane is turned
away by the Rivers sisters.
Flashback: Jane remembers being child (book opening scene).
Now that I had a good set of notes, I had to sit down and start writing; but
my anxiety about what exactly to write made this part a little challenging for me.
Making Time to Write
Monday: work, read for class, go to class, eat dinner, go to next class,
come home around 9pm. I’m too tired to start writing my paper tonight. I’ll start
it tomorrow.
—I’ve got to read
for class tonight—go to class, come home around 9pm. I’m too tired to start
writing my paper tonight, but I still have time. I’ll start it tomorrow.
Wednesday: work, read for class, go to class, get home around 5pm. I’m
so glad to have a night off! I’ll just enjoy my evening a little and then start
working . . .
Thursday: Sitting down to write. How do I start? I’m not sure what I want
to say. I wonder what other people have said about this movie? Google. Milner
Library Online. MLA International Bibliography database.
mentioned earlier, I often hold off on returning emails—I also frequently
forget about text messages I’ve received as other situations arise while I’m
contemplating how to respond—but academic writing is my worst form
of procrastination. Whether it be memos, lab reports, research papers, or
literary analysis essays, sitting in front of a Word document seems like the
most boring way to spend time I could be using to do other homework, clean
my apartment, cook dinner, or catch up on sleep. For me, there is never a good
atmosphere for writing; but since it currently eludes me, I must force myself
to sit and just write.
Reading to Write
Inevitably, when I sit down to write, I feel like I have nothing to say. Or
sometimes I have so many things to say that I have no idea where to start.
This always prompts me to do some research, and this is the dangerous part
for me—after all, there are so many interesting things on the Internet. I’m
a pretty big nerd when it comes to literary study and even though I don’t
like writing, I love researching. Because this activity is so much fun for me, I
usually spend a lot of time here—like with brainstorming—and I try to make
it as productive as possible. So, in this instance, I Google “Cary Fukunaga’s
Jane Eyre” and
to keep track of these sources and a new Word document in which to paste
quotes that I like from my readings. In my experience with research, one idea
always leads to several others so I end up spending [too much] time watching
interviews with Fukunaga on YouTube.
Really Writing This Time
Okay, now I’m committed. I’m sitting down at my desk; my blank Word document
is open—I hate how that blinking cursor taunts me. What to write? I don’t know
how to start this essay. Oh, it doesn’t matter! If I just start, then I can go back
and edit it later: “Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre (1847) has been gaining
attention for over one hundred and fifty years.” Okay, I’ve got the first sentence.
That’s always the hardest part—why do I start with intro, anyway? I usually
end up changing it drastically once I’ve figured out what my paper is actually
about. Have I always started papers this way? It doesn’t seem very productive.
Anyway, now what am I going to say? I have thoughts; I just don’t have any
words for them. Maybe my thoughts will develop if I just linger on them for a bit
while I play on the computer.
This thought usually results in me checking my Facebook page, playing a
game (or two or three) of FreeCell, or taking ridiculous pictures of myself in
Photo Booth that strangely offer a visual epitome of my writing activity (see
Figures 1 and 2).
Figure 1. I hate writing.
Figure 2. Pretending to think hard.
I usually have an ideal in mind of how I want my writing to look and
sound, but I don’t think I ever quite get there. I can’t ever seem to completely
master my thoughts and words into a perfect textual body. I have all of
these ideas jumping around in my head like little kids in a bouncy castle, but
translating those thoughts into words on a computer screen is a slow, timeconsuming process that involves hours of what feels like wasted time. This
time is otherwise manifested in me sitting at a local coffee shop and staring
out the window as if the words I’m looking for are going to stroll right down
the sidewalk, into the front door, and sit down at the table with me (I happen
to be looking out the coffee shop window waiting for the words to arrive at
the time of this writing). This activity always takes longer than I think it will,
which is what leads into the miserable middle-of-the-night writing described
in the opening of this article.
The All-Nighter, etc.
By this stage in the writing process, I actually have something I want to
say—usually. I’ve spent several hours over the course of multiple days thinking
about my topic, reviewing my topic, reading up on my topic, but it took me so
long to sit down and write that I end up pulling that all-nighter, writing up to the
deadline, and drinking enough coffee to cut years off of my life. This is why I
hate writing. It’s stressful, time-consuming, hard work, and there’s no guarantee
of positive feedback for all the effort. I’m working on overcoming this approach
to my writing process by focusing more on how to improve the individual
activities that make up writing. And maybe when I do, I’ll write another article
about how I’m such a fabulous writer and I have this great strategy and everyone
should follow my lead. However, I don’t think such a universal truth exists. I
think writing is a complex activity system that varies for each person and each
situation. So even though my personal process for writing academic essays is slow,
stressful, and riddled with self-criticism, my approach doesn’t make me any less
of a writer. I’m still translating my thoughts into words on a page, which makes
me—good or bad—a writer. I realize that I may never be able to “overcome”
my writing problems—but at least by recognizing the different activities that
So let the writing process begin again. This time I’ll try something new
and different to see how it works for me. Maybe it’ll be scheduling a writing
appointment with myself at an exact time every week. Maybe it’ll be writing
in a place I haven’t tried before. Maybe it’ll be making myself a writing snack
right before getting started. Maybe these habits will work for me and maybe
help relieve my writing pains.
Works Cited
Dickenson, Emily. “Much Madness is Divinest Sense.” Complete Poems of Emily
Dickenson
1960. Print.
McAndrew, Donald A., and Thomas J. Reigstad. Tutoring Writing: A Practical
Guide for Conferences. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001. Print.
Prior, Paul, et al. “Re-situating and Re-mediating the Canons: A CulturalHistorical Remapping of Rhetorical Activity.” Kairos 11.3 (2007): 1-29.
Kairos Online. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.
Rosenwasser, David, and Jill Stephen. Writing Analytically. 6th ed. Boston:
Wadsworth, 2012. Print.
Walker, Joyce R. “Just CHATting.” Grassroots Writing Research Journal 1 (2010):
71-80. Print.
Cayla Eagon is an English 101 instructor and MA student
of Literary and Cultural Studies in the English department
at Illinois State. Her favorite activities include playing
Jeopardy, watching movies in high definition, and reading
literature—especially the Bildungsroman and Gothic fiction.
She’s also notorious for leaving about coffee mugs.
Stefan Becker: The Grassroots Writing Research Journal Interview
Michael Gibson Wollitz
Over the course of an eventful afternoon, the GWRJ’s intrepid correspondent Aaron Mulnower sits down with Stefan Becker, legendary writer of
liner notes—that genre of writing which appears as part of the packaging
of musical albums and can take the form of anything from biography to
lyrics to musician credits—in an attempt to get to the heart of the great
man’s writing philosophy. What results is both surprising and disturbing. Below is the official transcript of their conversation, complete with
eyewitness editorial commentary.
MULNOWER: Mr. Becker, it’s an honor and a pleasure. Thank you for
agreeing to sit down and talk with us today.
BECKER: Yes, yes, of course. You’re welcome.
MULNOWER: Shall we get right to it, then? I suppose the best place to start
is at the beginning. Stefan Becker: Winner of eight Grammy Awards for Best
Album Notes; recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship; the only music writer in
American history to be awarded the National Book Foundation’s “Medal for
Distinguished Contribution to American Letters”; guest at the White House of
every president since Nixon; author of liner notes for countless iconic bands,
including artists as diverse as The Rolling Stones and Lil Wayne. (Makes a
“phew” sound) One almost feels the need to come up for air, and still there could
be more; one could go on and on and on listing your writing accomplishments.
BECKER: You are very kind, young man.
MULNOWER: Just the facts, sir. You have had the kind of success as a writer
most can only dream about achieving. Now for those readers who might be
unaware of even the most basic elements of liner notes, yet still want to learn
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Copyright © 2013 by Michael Gibson Wollitz
a bit about you and your esteemed body of work, let me take a moment
to sketch out the conventions of the form. Liner notes consist of the text
that accompanies any physical product of music, like a CD, a vinyl record,
a cassette tape, or even once upon a time, an eight-track. Liner notes most
often include such pertinent information as the names and running order
of the songs included; the lineup of musicians that made the recording; the
names of the individuals who produced, recorded, mixed, and engineered
the recording, and the locations where such work was completed; and any
number of thank yous or acknowledgements that the performers wish to
make. (Pauses, smiling) Now, of course you would be well aware of such
things, Mr. Becker. For our purposes here, then, my question is: Which of
these many characteristics interested you most, and thus made you want to
start studying liner notes?
BECKER: (Shrugs) None of them. Nothing in particular appealed to me
about the genre. Certainly I didn’t study anything. I just did the work.
MULNOWER: Okay. Fair enough. Well then, you must have started
somewhere. Describe, if you would, how you became the writer you are today.
BECKER: There is nothing to say.
MULNOWER: Pardon?
BECKER: Your request, there is nothing to describe. I was born as I am:
A wonderful writer, a true artist. My abilities as a writer are God-given gifts.
One day, when I was very young, I decided to put pen to paper, and what
resulted was an exercise in greatness. The rest is, as you were alluding to,
history.
MULNOWER: Really? My goodness, that is something else. What a blessing,
indeed. I’ve always heard that writing is a process. A matter of—
BECKER: (Interrupts) Writing is a process? (Uproarious laughter) Writing
is a process, so the young man has heard. I’m sorry, my friend, but writing is
a matter of mastery. Either you master the writing task at hand, or you fail.
There is no room for anything in between. Writing is nothing you can learn.
MULNOWER: Okay, well, point taken. Let’s move on. I want to ask you
about how you approach each, let’s just say, “assignment.” You’ve done work
for so many different kinds of musicians. How do you prepare differently when
writing for Miley Cyrus, as compared to writing liner notes for Radiohead?
BECKER: There is no difference. I do nothing differently.
MULNOWER: Is that so?
Wollitz — Stefan Becker 125
BECKER: Yes, certainly. I approach every kind of project the exact
same way.
MULNOWER: But don’t these very dissimilar kinds of bands or performers
require very dissimilar kinds of writing? Just like you wouldn’t write a job
class . . .
BECKER: Oh, young man, how much you have to learn! All writing is
the same, regardless of the genre of music! Liner notes for the infamous
Norwegian death metal band Lunatic Grapefruit? Liner notes for Leonard
Bernstein’s New York Philharmonic Greatest Hits? It’s all the same. No matter
what, I am me, and I write the same.
MULNOWER: So when you are writing you are never concerned about
your audience?
BECKER: Audience? My audience? Young man, are you kidding me?
(Laughs heartily, with much knee slapping) Why would I ever, ever, ever worry
about my audience? I don’t care about them! They’ll read whatever I write,
naturally. For the life of me, I can think of no reason why anyone would ever
consider who they are writing for when they are writing.
MULNOWER: Good to know. Talk about unexpected. I would never have
thought that was the case.
BECKER: It’s true. It’s why anyone who tells you they spend a lot of time
organizing their thoughts or doing (Here Becker makes air quotes with
his hands and adopts a high-pitched, whiny voice for the next sentence)
“research” about what they’re writing, they’re both crazy and foolish.
MULNOWER: Really? How so exactly? I can’t imagine a writer able to
produce work of such quality without doing any kind of research . . . (Curious,
his eyes narrow)
BECKER: Young man, surely you jest! Since when have you ever heard
anything about research for a writer? Writing research? WRITING
RESEARCH? (He practically shouts this phrase the second time before
bursting into such vigorous laughter that he begins to cough furiously. He
during which time he clears his throat repeatedly, pulls out a gold trimmed
handkerchief from the pocket of his tweed blazer—which he uses to clean
his circular, tortoiseshell glasses—and lights a large, expensive looking cigar)
Excuse me, my apologies. It’s just, writing research, what a funny thing to
think about. No, no, research is not for the writing, my dear boy. Research is
all well and good, but it is something for the scientists and laboratory peoples.
You do research to cure the cancer, to make the pandas have babies, to learn
about the dinosaurs, to discover how to travel through time. You do not
research writing, you simply write something. I’ve never researched anything
about writing, and look at how much I know about how to write.
MULNOWER: Okay. Hmmm. Well, I suppose this is as good a time as any
to ask you, if I may, about the controversy surrounding your most recent
piece of work. Your recent liner notes for Taylor Swift’s new album Red have
The New York Times put it, “wildly inappropriate”
and “a laughably poor effort from a once great artist.” Do you th—
BECKER: (Interrupts) Nonsense. I couldn’t care less what the, who, what’d
you call them?
?
MULNOWER: No, it was, in fact, The New York Times.
BECKER: Yes, The New York City Times. I could care less what they think. My
writing, its intentions are pure and holy. I do what I want, of course, but I never
intend to offend any overly sensitive souls. To complainers and simpletons like
these New York City Times people, I say: If you do not understand my work,
then you must be confused. There can be no other explanation.
MULNOWER: So would you say you never concern yourself with your
audience?
BECKER: (Responds haughtily) I never worry about anything, young man.
Worrying is a waste of time, and Stefan Becker is not in the business of
wasting time. Stefan Becker is in the business of being a writing master.
MULNOWER: (Unfazed, he continues) Mmmm. So as far as you are
concerned, external things—like, for instance, cultural and historical
You create, as it were, in a vacuum?
BECKER: (Eyes widen grotesquely to express seemingly superhuman levels
of incredulity) Whatever do you mean, young man, with this nonsense about
MULNOWER: But you do acknowledge that at a certain, inevitable point in
the writing process, the text is out of your control?
BECKER: What are you saying, young man?!? Out of my control?! (Yelling)
OUT OF MY CONTROL? My writing is never affected by anything but me.
By nothing, you hear me! This is the deal, young man, this is how it is: I write.
MULNOWER: Yes, sir. So you “write” (now adopting air quotes himself)
without any planning, research, attention to your potential audience, or
concern with the consequences of your production?
BECKER: Listen close. This shouldn’t be hard, even for you, as there’s not
me, son? Everything is done with at that point in time. Nothing else matters.
The work is dead when I conclude it. My readers, they read it, and they
accept it as I the writer, as I the artist, make them accept it. As I intended it to
be read, so it is read. They read it and understand what I mean, no ifs, ands,
or buts. End of story.
MULNOWER: I see wh—
BECKER: (Continuing his rant) And if they don’t, they are fools.
MULNOWER: Okay, thank you. So, I take it you are not a big believer in
the idea of the “trajectory” of a piece of writing?
BECKER: (Disbelieving, unknowing, voice raised) The what?!?
MULNOWER: The trajectory of . . .
BECKER: Trajectory? Like an airplane? I am a little boy, picking my nose
MULNOWER: No, that’s not what I mean. I meant like the trajectory of
a text, the way a text has a process of production, how any given piece of
writing has a different relationship to any number of other entities, be they
people or institutions or whatever.
BECKER: (Snorts dismissively) Trajectory, what a thing. (Laughs again,
in what is getting harder and harder to describe as anything but a meanspirited manner) Once more, young man—and I will make sure to talk very
slowly here for you—my work, my writing, it doesn’t matter what anybody
else thinks of any of it. Their opinion doesn’t matter at all. The whole of
human history, the entirety of our contemporary culture, (pounds table with
WRITTEN BY ME.
MULNOWER: (Sarcastic) Okay then, so, how do you write? What
technologies do you use as part of your process?
BECKER: (Frustrated, visibly angry, and now making little attempt to hide
it) Again, process is imaginary. I have no process. Why have process when you
can just write!
MULNOWER: Technology. I mean, just technology. What do you use?
BECKER: I don’t use any technology.
MULNOWER: Come again?
BECKER: I don’t use any technology.
MULNOWER: I am afraid I don’t follow. You say you don’t use any technology?
BECKER: Young man, I swear you are on my very last nerve. Are you now
deaf, in addition to being dumb, which you have already well established? I . . .
do . . . not . . . use . . . any . . . technology.
MULNOWER:
up: How so?
BECKER: (Eyes shoot daggers at Mulnower. Now unquestionably apoplectic.
The threat of violence is in the room.) I, STEFAN BECKER, DO NOT
USE ANY TECHNOLOGY WHEN WRITING! I write out everything by
hand, and that’s that!
MULNOWER: So you would deny that paper is its own technology?
BECKER: (Face bright red, veins visible in forehead, breaths short and forced.
In his trembling hands the cigar is moments away from being snapped in
two.) Technology? No, you fool! Technology is computers and The Internets
and things of those natures. (Looks around the room, presumably for his
manager/agent) With all due respect, young man, I am not sure you are
was going to be interviewed by someone who knew a lot about the magical
craft of writing, not some chump who ceaselessly brings up inane things that
have nothing to do with being a writer.
MULNOWER: I am sorry you feel that way. I, and many others, would
consider even pencil and paper a technology.
BECKER:
just expressing the ideas . . . if it’s just the crazy ideas of you and your foolish
band of confused friends that you are babbling about, I can accept that and
attempt to forgive your ignorance. (Sighs deeply)
MULNOWER: Thank you. Shall we try and continue with another question?
BECKER: (Rolls eyes, sighs deeply again) Sure, why not.
MULNOWER: I appreciate your time immensely. Let’s wrap this up. Mr.
Becker, I must ask about this. What do you make of those who would say that
because of iTunes and MP3s and digital downloads and all that, that album
liner notes are a dying genre?
BECKER: I don’t follow you, young man.
MULNOWER: No one buys CDs anymore, let alone vinyl records. How do you
expect your genre of choice to continue to survive going forward in the future?
(There is a long spell of silence. When Becker next speaks, his words are
measured and monotonous, but somehow still carry an air of real menace)
BECKER: Young man . . . do you . . . I ask you . . . do you mean . . . to imply
. . . that there won’t . . . always be . . . liner notes?
MULNOWER: I’m not implying it. That’s exactly what I’m saying.
BECKER: Liner notes have always been liner notes, and they will always be
liner notes, end of story. HOW DARE YOU? Why I ought to….I’ll teach
you a lesson! (Becker rises from his chair, cigar ash cascading off his stomach
and chest as he springs forward, attempting to attack Mulnower. However,
Mulnower is too quick for Becker. He grabs a manila folder from his stack
of interviewer’s papers and moves away from Becker, keeping the table
strategically between them. Becker picks up a chair and chases Mulnower
around the table. This lasts for several minutes. Finally, the two men pause to
catch their breaths. Standing, edgy, paranoid, they eye each other from across
the table.)
MULNOWER: You are a monster! You really are a monster!
BECKER: I am judge, jury, and executioner! No one questions Stefan
Becker! No one! I’ll be the end of you, you inconsequential fool!
MULNOWER: No sir, I’ll be the end of you! I didn’t want to do this, but you
made me: No more Mr. Nice Guy. (Waves the manila folder at Becker) Do
you know what this is?
BECKER: (Wheezing) I’ve no idea, and I do not care.
MULNOWER: You will care. This, this is research, something you wouldn’t
know anything about. I’ve done some research into your writing and I’ve
discovered some interesting things, Mr. Becker.
BECKER: (Trying to maintain his haughty demeanor, but wary now) Oh,
really? Like what?
MULNOWER: (Smirking in triumph) I have research here showing that you
are a fraud, Stefan Becker. A fraud! You’re a terrible, terrible writer, and
a horrible, horrible person. How could you ever be a good writer? You’ve
never done any writing research in your life. The only reason you have been
successful is because of . . . your mother!
BECKER: You leave my mother out of this!
MULNOWER: Your mother wrote all those famous liner notes that received
all those fancy awards. She was quite the writer researcher, and in the way
of doting mothers she loved you so very much that she devoted herself for
forty years to developing and then protecting the myth of Stefan Becker.
(Waves folder again) It’s all here, every gory detail. It’s all here. That’s why
your liner notes for Taylor Swift’s Red are so bad: Your mother died earlier
your arrogance you thought you could carry on without your personal writer
researcher, but you couldn’t. You couldn’t! My goodness, man, look at these
liner notes! Listen to what you wrote as liner notes for Taylor Swift—
BECKER: (Stricken) No! No! Spare me! Do not throw those notes back in
my face! Not here! Not now!
MULNOWER: Oh yes, yes indeed. You dodged me once, but we are going
there now. Over the picture of a koala, you wrote, and I quote: (Reading now
from a piece of paper drawn from his folder) “What you must understand,
you morons, is egg salad. The beauty, the perfection, the elegance. Music.
Words. Sounds. Eggs. Mayonaise. Tasty, tasty mayonaise. And therein lies the
power of song.” (Laughs derisively while tossing the folder on the table) And
you didn’t even spell mayonnaise right. Two N’s, Becker! TWO N’s! (Intensity
of his speech changes. Mulnower is no longer the prosecutor passionately
arguing his case before a judge, but rather now sounds like a teacher patiently
explaining a new concept to a student) Mayonnaise is spelled with two N’s,
Mr. Becker. What was that gibberish, sir? Because it sure wasn’t liner notes.
Liner notes are a way to convey to the reader additional information about
a piece of music to which he or she is listening. Sure they can vary wildly,
taking the form of anything from abstract artwork that reveals little in the
way of tangible detail about the music it accompanies, to an erudite essay that
painstakingly describes the product at hand from conception to completion;
regardless, I can promise you liner notes, like any other form of writing,
require more attention and research than a couple of sentences about egg
salad superimposed on a picture of a koala.
BECKER: (Slumps forward, his left arm resting on the back of a chair, his
right hand massaging his forehead) I thought . . . No one . . . All these years
. . . My secret was safe . . . (Looks up at Mulnower, crestfallen, unbelieving)
And you accomplished all this by . . . by . . . by research?
MULNOWER: Yes, yes I did. And now the world will know the truth about
Stefan Becker.
BECKER: NEVER! OVER MY DEAD BODY! (Stands up fully and lunges
across the table, grabbing Mulnower by the collar of his shirt. Mulnower goes
somersaulting backwards over his chair. As the two men tussle, the tape ends
in a squeal of static.)
***
Mulnower, came out of this little dustup no worse for wear. However, your writing won’t be
of writing being an activity that you do not think about, or study, or research, or work hard
at like any other craft or labor of love is one to avoid like the plague. Shut your ears and avert
your eyes! Maybe even boycott Becker’s work if you are so inclined . . .
Nah, on second thought, who are we kidding, there’s no need for that, as fortunately,
overactive imaginations. None of the above encounter was real. Instead, what is very real
is the challenge each and every one of us face each and every day as we attempt to go
about learning more about the ways of writing research, and what exactly it means to be
a “writer.” Also, very real: All the fun and different and strange yet exciting things you can
do when writing. For instance, you can create a fake transcript of an imaginary interview
might work. Or maybe it won’t. Either way, there are so many roads you can explore when
writing. Just remember, though: No matter what path you take as a writer/writer researcher,
don’t take the path Stefan Becker would take. Think: What Would Stefan Becker Do? And
do the opposite. Don’t be Stefan Becker. Just say no.
Michael Gibson Wollitz is a PhD candidate in English Studies at Illinois State
University. His research focuses on contemporary American and Irish literature.
Publishing with the Grassroots Writing Research Journal
GWRJ Editors
Our Mission Statement
The GWRJ is dedicated to publishing work by writers and scholars whose
work investigates the practices of people writing (and acting) in different writing
situations and in a variety of different genres. We encourage both individuals
and groups to submit work that studies and explores the different ways that
writers learn how to write in different genres and settings—not just within the
boundaries of academia, but in all kinds of settings where writing happens.
Because we identify as “writing research” any type of composition that
endeavors to uncover new information about how people work with writing
or how writing works, a wide range of techniques and styles of writing might
about writing, a formal study of writing, or even an artistic production could
all be useful techniques for developing a GWRJ article. However, accepted
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theories of how people learn to compose in different situations.
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Articles can be submitted to the GWRJ at any time. Contact the
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Because we encourage so many different kinds of textual production and
research in the GWRJ, issues of appropriate style and tone can be complicated.
However, we can offer the following basic style criteria for authors to consider:
1. The readership of the GWRJ is writers. It is not “students,” even though
the journal is used by writing instructors and students. (The GWRJ remains
the primary text for Writing Program courses at Illinois State University,
and it’s also used by teachers and students in other programs as well.)
GWRJ articles should attempt to provide valuable content to writers who
are engaged in the activity of “learning how to learn about” genres.
2. “Teacher narratives” are not acceptable as GWRJ articles. We are
interested in material that looks at literate activities from the position
of a “writer” or a “researcher,” but articles that discuss ways to “teach”
people about writing are not appropriate for this journal.
or unappealing to our readers.
4. A tone that situates the author as a “master” writer is often problematic.
(We call these “success” narratives, which are often how-to type articles
in which the focus is on the author’s learned expertise.) Authors should
remember that no one “learns” a genre completely or in completely
write about successes, they need to complicate the genres with which
they are working.
5. Tone or content that situates the reader as a certain kind of writer
(whether as a master or novice), with certain kinds of shared experiences,
can be problematic, because the readership of the journal constitutes a
wide variety of writers with different writing abilities and experiences.
6. Whenever possible, articles should make use of published research about
writing practices, but the research should be incorporated into the text in
GWRJ Editors — Publishing with the Grassroots Writing Research Journal 135
a relevant and accessible way so that readers who are not used to reading
writing activities they are studying. Generalized studies or discussions
of “writing” are not encouraged. Additionally, examples of “writing-inprogress” are always encouraged and are often necessary for articles to
be useful to our readers.
Media, Mode, and Copyright Issues
The GWRJ can publish both visual and digital texts. We encourage
multimodal texts, including still images, audio, video, and hypertexts.
However, authors working with these technologies need to be careful about
copyright issues as we cannot publish any kinds of materials that may result in
copyright infringement. We can sometimes seek copyright permissions, but in
the case of materials such as works of art or graphics/images owned by large
companies, this is often not possible. This is true for print-based articles that
use images as well. We can, however, include materials that are covered by Fair
Also, video/audio of research subjects can require special kinds of permission
processes. So you should contact the GWRJ editors before beginning this kind
of work. Research using subjects who are considered “protected” populations
(people under eighteen and people with mental disabilities, among others)
are not acceptable for GWRJ articles unless the author has received approval
from Illinois State University or another institution to conduct research with
human subjects.
Researching for the GWRJ
What does it mean to “do writing research?” At the GWRJ, it means people
observing, investigating, critiquing, and even participating in the activities
that humans engage in that involve literate practice.
But what does it really mean?
some situation where humans are doing things that involve language (which
can mean composing in oral, aural, visual, etc. genres, and not just writing on
paper) and thinking, “Hey, that looks interesting,” and then taking the time to
investigate that practice in some detail.
But this kind of research isn’t just about people. It’s really about what
we call “activity systems,” which just means that we want to learn about
all kinds of complicated interactions, not just what a particular kind of
text looks like, or what a particular person does when they produce a text
(although we’re interested in those things, too). We also want to know about
the interactions between people as they produce texts and the interactions
between humans and their tools, practices, and different kinds of textual
productions. And we’re interested in how certain kinds of texts work to
shape our interactions, for example, the ways the genre of resumes might
and offering work.
To help researchers who might be thinking about or engaging in
literate practices that they’d like to investigate, we’ve created this list of
the types of research projects that might be interesting or appropriate for
the GWRJ.
Investigating Genres
These kinds of research projects usually investigate the nuances of
particular genres: how they are made and who makes them, the distinctive
features they have, who uses them, how and where they are used, and how
they do particular kinds of communicative work in the world. This research
is often straightforward, and, as some of the articles in our early issues reveal,
this kind of genre investigation might have a “how-to” feel, because many
of the authors creating these pieces are also trying to learn how to produce
that genre. However, genre investigations can move far beyond these “howto” pieces. There are countless ways that genres can be examined in relation
to how they do work in the world, including investigating technological and
social implications that our readers would be interested in. “Following”
genres to see where they go and the kinds of work they are made to do can
take an author well beyond simply describing the features of a particular
kind of text. One issue that is of concern to the GWRJ editors is that genre
stable productions that are always the same. So we encourage researchers
to consider the ways that genres constantly move and shift over time and in
different situations.
Personal Explorations of Literate Practice
This kind of research is often closely connected to genre investigations.
Authors examine their own practices to discover how they have learned to
produce certain kinds of writing in certain situations, or they investigate
particular kinds of composing practices, such as different practices for
engaging in research or revision. Like genre investigations, these kinds of
projects sometimes have a “how-to” focus, as authors learn to think about
and explain to others the things they know (or are coming to know) about
different literate practices.
Composing Practices
This kind of research looks at particular kinds of composing practices,
including invention (coming up with ideas), research, revision, etc. It often
overlaps with personal exploration research because authors are often
investigating their own practices. However, this research could certainly
involve interviews or observations of how other individuals or groups
engage in these practices. One issue that concerns the GWRJ editors is that
this kind of research can lead to assumptions that these composing practices
are “universal”—that is, that they work in similar ways across all kinds of
genres and writing situations. While it is possible to trace similar kinds of
literate practices across different situations (and, in fact, it can be really
interesting—see, for example, Kevin Roozen’s writing research, “Tracing
Trajectories of Practice: Repurposing in One Student’s Developing
Disciplinary Writing Processes,” in Written Communication, 2010 27:3)—it
is important to remember that we really can’t talk about an activity like
“revising” as if it’s something that a person does the same way in every
kind of situation.
Literate Activity in the Wild
While writing in classrooms or for school settings can often seem
very cut-and-dried, these practices are really more complicated than they
seem. Part of the reason we don’t see the complications of many kinds of
literate practices is that, once we become “embedded” in the activity, it no
longer seems complicated to us! We know how to do it, but we don’t really
remember how we learned to do it. Another reason that we sometimes miss
the complications of writing is that there are “tropes” or particular ways
straightforward. An example of this is the activity of “writing a paper,”
which can bring up very stylized and simplistic images of how a person
just sits down, does some research, and then writes a paper for a particular
class. But in fact, not only are the acts of researching and composing
much more complicated than this limited view might offer, but also, this
kind of literate practice is actually much more interactive than we might
generally think. The GWRJ is interested in investigations that look at
We want to see researchers “unpacking” what is actually happening when
people try to compose particular kinds of texts in particular situations. We
are also interested in research that looks at the ways that textual production
is interactive—how it involves all kinds of interactions between different
people and different objects, tools, and other entities over time. This kind
of research can involve the interactions of people and genres and different
cultural norms and practices.
Case Studies of Individual Literate Practices
This type of research focuses very closely on particular individuals and
the kinds of literate practices they engage in in their daily lives. Some of
our previously published articles that take this research approach include
research into the ways an individual learns to interact with a particular genre
or particular literate situation. But we are also very interested in research
that looks at literate practice more broadly and deeply. So, for example, how
does an individual take composing practices from one situation and apply
them to another? How does an individual learn to interact within a particular
setting in which different types of genres are being produced (so, say, a new
kind of work environment)? This kind of research can be constructed as a
collaborative process in which one researcher acts as an observer while the
other engages in an exploration of his/her personal practices.
Linguistic Writing Research
The work that currently exists in the journal in this area tends to focus
stylistic or punctuation devices. However, we want to encourage linguistic
writing research that is more robust and complicated, including projects that
explore corpus linguistics (using a collection of data to look at particular kinds
of textual practice), or sociolinguistics (investigating the particular ways that
humans use language within social systems).
Global or Intercultural Literate Practices
It is only within our last few issues of the journal that the GWRJ has
been able to publish research on literate practices as they move across
cultural and/or geographical spaces. For examples, see Adriana Gradea’s
articles in this issue and in our previous issue (“The Little Genre that Could:
CHAT Mapping the Slogan of the Big Communist Propaganda”), along
with Summer Qabazard’s article in our previous issue (“From Religion to
Chicken Cannibalism: American Fast Food Ads in Kuwait”). We would like
to encourage more of this kind of research in future issues as we are highly
interested in research that studies the ways that people and textual practices
move across these kinds of boundaries.
The Researcher’s Process
According to one of our GWRJ authors, Lisa Phillips, it can be useful
for authors to investigate and articulate a personal process for developing
ideas for research projects that will be meaningful for them. She offered us
her notes on the process that she followed to create her article for the journal,
“Writing with Tattoo Ink: Composing that Gets under the Skin.” Her process
is presented below in ten “steps” that GWRJ
Step One
answer is: “What is it about writing in the world that interests me?”
Step Two
listed above can be useful for focusing a topic.) So the second question an author
Step Three
Next, think about both the research practices that will be needed to gather
data as well as the style of article that will be most appropriate. One excellent
way to do this is to read existing articles and examine the different ways that
authors have approached different topics and different kinds of research.
Step Four
Because Grassroots articles are a fairly unique kind of writing, authors
to draw on as they write. We call these antecedent genres, and they can be
important to think about because these prior experiences always shape how
an author writes, especially when he or she is writing in a new and unfamiliar
genre. While these antecedent genres will certainly be useful, they can also
with the style, tone, or content that is appropriate for GWRJ articles. Some
questions to ask here are: “What kinds of writing do I already know how to do
that I can use to help me? How are they similar and how are they different?”
Step Five
It can also be important to think about “target genres,” or types of
writing that might be used as examples during the research and writing
process. Obviously GWRJ articles can be useful in this way, but it can also be
interesting to think of other kinds of writing that might serve as examples.
example, books and articles found on the WAC Clearinghouse Website at
http://wac.colostate.edu), but other kinds of research into social practices or
even different kinds of journalism can be used as interesting models.
Step Six
Consider what kinds of visuals a text might need. Visual examples of
different kinds of writing can be crucial to add interest and information to a
text, but copyright issues will need to be considered. Charts, graphs, or other
illustrations that highlight important aspects of the data you’ve collected can
also be important.
Step Seven
Thinking carefully about what information (data) is needed to make the
article credible and useful for readers is a critical step. Thus, once an author
has made decisions about the type of research he or she wants to do, it will
also be important for him or her to make a plan for how to get that research.
Will it be necessary to visit sites where writing is happening? Interview people
about how they produce or use different kinds of writing? Find historical
examples of types of writing?
Step Eight
If the article is going to include observations of people’s writing activities
or interviews or surveys, you’ll need to obtain the proper permission. The
interview/image consent form for GWRJ articles can be found on our website:
http://isuwriting.com/grassroots/.
Step Nine
Although the GWRJ doesn’t require any particular style of citation, we do
require that authors cite all of their information. The editors will help authors
to think about what needs to be cited and how it can be done, but authors
will want to think about the best way to cite. This includes considering the
different ways that citation works in different kinds of writing; for example,
scholarly journal articles cite very differently than newspaper or magazine
articles or blog posts. Sometimes the style of citation can really affect how a
reader thinks about the information in an article, so it’s important to think not
only about what to cite, but also how to cite it.
Step Ten
As the text is being produced, it is critical to keep in mind the needs and
interests of GWRJ readers. They are interested in reading about a wide range
of topics, and they enjoy articles written in a wide range of styles. But since
our readers have such a wide range of interests, it is important not to take
them for granted. Writing that is interesting, lively, and accessible is important,
but perhaps the most important thing to remember is that your research, no
matter how it’s presented, represents your knowledge and thinking about a
topic related to writing that is important to you. And since we’re all writers,
and all of us are learning all the time about how to “do writing” in the world,
sharing your knowledge is, ultimately, an act of community.
Questions?
If you have any questions about the journal or any of the articles, you
can send queries to grassrootswriting@gmail.com. Part of our mission is to
welcome and encourage all kinds of writing research, so if you have an idea
that you want to develop, please don’t hesitate to share it with us.

Issue 4.1 here - Grassroots Writing Research

Transcription

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